theresa this afternoon god willing and up with this marvelous model of the in her castle of gold and other places she says a luminous crystal
and we moved in we moved to deeper intimacy with god in christ and at every phase our life of prayer becomes more profound well and we've seen with the fourth match and that's a key moment of transition when gods
starts really moving in but in a very subtle almost imperceptible weight and so part of her message it's really part of that of john of the cross as be attentive
and respect that mysterious silent loving peace
jonas will see talks of a general of it's mysterious it's not focused on one clear object but it simply there
mysterious extended way don't disdain that it seems like we're not doing anything in fact we shouldn't do anything but to give over to that and in the fifth mansions this presence becomes quite more emphatic and we get to such a level that she says of
you can't really describe it in words who were in the famous apple static very much now that is beyond images beyond phrases beyond descriptions at work
she says at the very beginning of the fifth dwelling places or sisters how can i explain the riches and treasures and delights found in the fifth dwelling places i believe it would be better not to say anything at all about these remaining rooms for there's no way of learning how to speak of them neither is intellect
capable of understanding them door came comparisons help and explaining them earthly things are to course for such a purpose so this is the great apathetic tradition there's just nothing to say and having said that then she goes on but not much she goes on to pray
she goes on to say holy spirit you help me here so she says send light from heaven by lord that i might be able to enlighten these your servants for you have been pleased that some of them ordinarily enjoy these delights so that they may not be deceived for all their desires are directed towards policing you
so she goes into prayer and then she continues with this model and again at the beginning ch adjusted at the model as such was inspired from on high
and up she makes me a beijing i think optimistic ugh
kind of analysis a kind of of she does a survey of or own sisters who are contemplative in there just at the beginning of their foundation and their gathering etc but she says most of her sisters do in fact get into at least the dimensions
and although i have said some there are indeed only a few who failed to enter this dwelling place of which i shall now speak there are various degrees and for that reason i say that most enter these places and so of this is a difficulty in some passages she describes the
the merchants in some terms of quite more modest in other bassi just more emphatic so it's not that you see up organizing her down to the nth degree
but basically she seems consistent and what differentiates the fifth mansions from the fourth again is not a of difference of quality but of difference of degree and also at this point she says the main thing is that the soul is just certain that god is here
in the fourth it still puzzled pondering what is this mysterious quiet in the fifth there's no way that the soul can deny that this is god's work this is the main
prices the transition from the fourth to the fifth mansions god so places himself in the interior of that soul that when it returns to itself after the prayer it can in no way doubt that it was in god and god was hidden in this truth remains with it so firmly that he
even though years go by without god granting that favor again the so can either forget nor doubt that it was him god and god was in it so after the fifth mentioned the soul mine just go back and go to kind of an ordinary put their sad remembrance and
it's just not possible to doubt that
we might nuances in her age given that were so overwhelmed by psychological there might be with scrupulous sold to certain was this self suggestion was this but when the soul is most tranquil and just at peace with the sole useful language
when the person is most just lucid and up the presence of best signal that was god
the other distinction it again she nuances but it snowed normally are the kind of the the main line experience of this prayer of union as she calls it is that all the interviewer interior faculties are now caught up in a kind of a hush
ah the will but also the intellect in the memory there's just as kind of deep quiet and this also characterized as this level
he does not want our will to have any part to play for it has been entirely surrendered to him neither does he want the door the faculties of the senses to be opened for they are all this sleep it's kind of repose serious mysterious ineffable
of presence of god and ups uses a lusty image here it's not then that the faculties as in the early your prayers previous to the effort mentioned they're also christ is present but as surprised that i imagine and pray to and put their through my intellect etc
here it's christ from within appears as christ just moved through all the closed doors of the risen christ to encounter the apostles but he wants to enter the center of the show without going through any door as he entered the place where is to say
i to work when he said peace be with you since a lovely young pascoe reading of this experience
there's various ways can complete this prayer of union or in some passages it's a very incomplete for and then we can still gently work with our lower faculties
ha
ah in others their sisters total absorption so she started get always unanimous in describing it but she is insane there's certitude and generally this this mysterious inevitable presence that's holding us is expanding down through
the faculty she says often it's very brief
but
it's there at this point she gets into this interesting discussion what about the sisters had have no such experience are they the years or can they not obtain to sanctity she has no bacon attained the sanctity by the other way of just commitment of the will to doing god's will
and a kind of an active ministry of fruitfulness to the lord
it will be good to avoid giving impression that those to whom the lord doesn't give these things that are so supernatural are left without hope true union can very well be reached with god's help we make the effort to obtain it by keeping our will to fixed only to what god wills so this is where the
jesuits come aboard and say see even with them there's not just the way the contemplative way and of so there's all this to be going i'm extremely interesting debate if you want to but ah
i think the main thing for those in fact who have an impression to be on the contemplative way is to go with it to be extremely up attentive and reverential to this mysterious presence and to try to move with it the main thing is that up it just as per
rare to speak of yet which gives deep communion with god fills one with a commitment and or c o been a joy and love for doing good things this is the basic sign she gives of the authenticity and gorsuch's the basic site the our lord kids
of by a fruit you shall know the the tree
ah
and even if the person backslide since she had this experience of still somehow she's been changed he's been changed and there will be benefit for the whole church
ah
if a person doesn't herself benefit the favorite will benefit others for since the soul is left with these desires and purchase of were mentioned it always brings profits to other souls during the time to continues to live virtuously and they catch fire from its fire even if there's not this ongoing contemplative experience
once so i'm kind of interesting
oh she has worked we've been talking about going from a very formal relationship of another person to really spontaneous intimacy with that person that super quiet when we start this the console to the other person very deeply and the other person being god
speaks to us in his her language which is is totally other then she ships now into the model of falling in love so with the poor quiet we were dating god so to speak we're going steady there says hardship now on the part of god now
if we move into the prayer of union and that's of
i'm really going steady and gonna
that our betrothal is the sixth man shouldn't and full of marriage is the seven
so up the betrothal what's happening here we get into what we would call to date extraordinary stuffed the visions the locations also the raptures of i don't know if you know that bernini statue where she's just
this is on the cover you see on her face are swept off her feet in this ecstatic love and in bernie versions years this cupid was a casting a dark right into her heart
and so she had many of these experts where she just swoons away that is to say this presence of god gaussian and takes not only all the inner faculties but also the body so she can move for anything
and up this is dangerous level you can not kind of go crazy this
and she says this isn't the highest level if you're just knocked over by god's love of that's not it the final level is when you get back on your feet and you go about also your normal life but with a strange lucidity now up when you see
everything from a new light she says in one passage it's it's if seeing god and indeed the holy trinity in a cloud she uses his wonderful language of cloud which jun of across will use and which shook of course is classic image of he authored the cloud of unknowing
and it's a very biblical image remember that about sinai when a roses a sense he must have sent into this cloud but it's into the cloud that one encounters but at this point there's a spiritual marriage something definitive happens there's no then backsliding
aren't up there's justice definitive union of theologians mystical theologians get too fancy debate you can a soul in that state even commit venial sins and that kind of thing so kind of language that we don't use that much after vatican two unfortunately
that's interesting issues
but again that's her bottle and it's basically the model love a couple just get to know each other and and have deepened steep and steepens even to the point of full marriage so it's a beautiful human model and it's the bottom of scripture itself uses in the sublime passengers
of the profits that would say out isaiah certainly the canticle of canticles and then regularly in the new testament of jesus is referred to as the spouse or he refers to himself as the spouse so that's about model again it's a model of spousal mysticism
moved to the center of the castle to get into the up bridal chamber with spouse
oh what's this all for and you just stay there and done with a spouse ecstatically know with him spin you're on fire would love to do good works member were him the period of about the debate with a liter and is it simply faith and done soon boulder
the and faith or what about good works and i think at this point of the ecumenical dialogue and nineteen ninety seven we've come to a wonderful mutual understanding is not either or it's both and and luther was right and trent was right daughter was right that we are saved by faith not by works
but a trent was right that this faith cogs us them to good works the tree must bear fruit and so that's what all this mystical stuff it's all about it's not just the i say their stay there and a kind of a narcissistic pleasure but that i a bear much
fruit in a community and my family in the world
for if it is with him very much it being again the soul it should think little about itself all its concern is taken up now with how to please him more and where it will show him the love and bears him this
this is the reason for prayers my daughter's the purpose of this spiritual marriage the birth always a good works good works so she's thoroughly catholic in that for it and up let's go out now and serve the sisters and brothers and it should bear fruit in all of this
so of this very briefly is of teresa just a young
wonderful mistake with of all these different levels of virtues and importance first of all as founders of this nature contemplative order then herself but just doing it from a distance but as towering mystic of this pony car
or says perhaps no one has been more profoundly you need united with god and she's so she's just to be read from that but then she so eloquent and so articulate so inspired i think we could say or to describe this journey also for us
and up to welcome us to turn forward
so let's now pass on to her wonderful friend companion spiritual father spiritual son john of the cross some ways very different from her some ways a very very similar indeed
here again absolutely a giant and again a doctor a universal church i'm not quite sure what of our father joseph was getting at but i looked it up at both of them are doctors of the universal church certainly specifically for their mystical doctrine
ah jack murray todd i hope you all remember him a very important a spokesperson for the kyoto mystery novel and he wanted christian philosophy and theology to culminate in christian mysticism he was certainly a contemplative and mystic as was his wonderful wife well a china
across mrs may guide he says the doctrine of st john the cross is the pure catholic doctrine of the mystical life you want a solid teacher that would get you in trouble he our superiors who was one of the early scholars of this century who
got all his writings together in a wonderful elegant translation just dedicated his whole life to channel the cross
you said as english scholar he said he knew so many converse who are dedicated scholarly like to this person or that person certain point gonna burn out you know you can only get so much from the wisdom that this person or that person offers but up years said of ridge on the cross should never get to the a
bottom of the well you never get tired of all the as to offer so he says with a certain enthusiasm to the whole of christendom he is and always will be the mystics mystic know contemplative however advanced will fail to have recourse to him and to find in his image
whiteman inspiration he is beneath the level of none and yet possesses the great gift of being intelligible to all
ah well i think there's some i pro behind her as we see there is a plenty of mystics who in fact don't find him as their cup of tea and the whole eastern church certainly today is able to take a little snip sector china the cross et cetera but a all things being equal i don't know for how many baptists
seize the mystics mystique and of of them
but certainly for catholics who spring
the early merton one of his first books as the ascent of mount carmel and it is basically of it is basically a the carmelite theology and especially journal across here right right the clarity and logic of this spanish carmelite as
added to is unsurpassed experiential knowledge of the things of god make him by far the greatest as well as the surest of all mystical theologians so wonderful rave notices if you wanted to do a poster child of adolescent
ah he remains quite important today of a certain carol wojtyla if that know rings a bell because he did his doctoral thesis on john of the cross on faith in german across and faith is just patch will be foundational it's not some marginal thing for german across faith as
everything so and then have read young before vatican two paul the six invited this weighty will this cardinal off important to come and give the retreat for the pope and the vatican and so he came in basically breach john of across
and that's when he really caught the attention of the western church into some will say that doug jogging across got him right into the vatican so if you want to really have a career
the out the jumping across with your paul she just thing is avoid all careers avoid any anything that might get you a little more glory try to hide try to rob be nothing in this world and certainly the pope wasn't after advancing his career
ah eastern theologians are critical they say if you look at the new testament is basically good news it's basically pascoe light our main feast isn't good friday it's eastern if you look at the main line eastern mystical tradition it's luminosity it's light
gregory ah
nissan sentra how this can be very much contested because great britain assault talks about darkness in the cloud and center but there is a lot of light in the eastern church a benedictine sometimes feel a little uncomfortable have a lot again about the true checkable spirituality
so abbott cuthbert butter one of the great authorities and western mysticism but he argues that jumped across is not representative even a western mysticism let alone of eastern western mysticism job gregory the great the great pope who founds a western miss
decision in certain sense he talks about this up on circumscribed light that is experience and contemplative prayer now you can find a lot about lighting theresa but in john it'll be darkness darkness start so that gets some disturbed abbott army and a great a teacher of the benedictine tradition who
some causes up for beatification just china the crisis like a sponge of the sponge is filled with christian water but you can just squeeze the sponge squeeze all that water out and you still got the sponge which is a kind of in a generic mystical doctrine and you
as well fill it with buddhist water or hindu or some argue for a certain influence of muslim mysticism the muslim presence in spain was very important until the catholics really took over and done so some up just raised the question how
how christian his children across sprinkling others are appalled even by this question and say no you can't get more christian than he
so it's an interesting debate but just so you know that it's not all kind of unanimous bloodshed and i think show me his part show there's no doubt about that but for what he does individual mystical experience in the night of fake i think for me
he absolutely unsurpassed
a few things about his son life born in fifteen forty two so up he is very much to resist jr he could be kind of her son and there is this again this complicated dielectric in their relationship he was born in a town just thirty miles from
up his father belonged to a very established reputable family wealthy but he in his love i chose to marry a poor weaver of no distinction and the family the wealthy family just disowned him and so
he died and she was left a widow and the rich family of the husband would have nothing to do with her so charmed across a gross up in this traumatic situation and a deeply impressed by poverty suffered
and humiliations of the way of love is the way of suffering the way of the crops this is his early on experience
he was put actually had to be put in naoh orphanage or catechetical school
and up that he moved onto the college of the jesuits he found a patron who recognized not only his a piety but extremely intelligent if you wanted to he could have been just a speculative theologian did very well in geology
i'm so he goes up for three year course in salamanca university for theology now salamanca was right up there with the paris bologna and oxford so he got a very quality theological education teresa didn't have that so we're of
here in a kind of a different ballpark decent she can articulate his vision with a structure and a theological sureness and clarity of the top no one could touch him
he was made early on prefect of his class which is d a pint of shining student the kind of fun evident up number one of the class the summa cum laude in ah so he was ordained to the priesthood the age of only twenty five and he was just focused on becoming card
lucian right from the beginning he wanted to scurry the pure contemplative life up at that point of he met theresa
and she says hey forget the cartesians join the carmelite reform to be much better for you he says again okay i'll do it but it's gotta go quickly i don't want to waste any time and this is very characteristic is your spiritual so he is co-founder of the whole discounts carmelite family
there's of the cowshed which means literally the of those with socks and those without the carmelites there's two main branches of the carmelites oh but the main thing is the discounts to focus very much more on the contemplative and they claim teresa john of across
it's so she's moving into her reform and father provincial accepts their a renunciation of the mitigated rule and the profession of a primitive rule now and it's predominantly contemplative now they have the divine office getting up at midnight and they have a mass
the divine have the liturgy together but the main thing is two hours a day of silent prayer this is a thing they're going to focus on sitting in silence and this is the whole thing the devil focus so then they found the at their own house of studies and he's immediately named of
rector in fifteen seventy
so he's only
twenty eight years old and used the rector of their house of studies ah the king of spain has had find to the reform the apostolic visitors visited spain is so fine similar problem but in fact there's huge problems there's kind of a what would you say
say
when you've got two lines of obedience and they're not in dialogue among themselves and is good sometimes happen well the catalyst chapter
well they're saying no way back in italy they don't know what the spanish king and what the apostolic visitor in spain saying they're saying hey these people are in right disobedience to the rule we have not given permission to this reform so they are appalled so as
at their chapter and peons in italy piacenza i'm sorry they are declared teresa john across and for disobedience and they both to suppress all these houses of the reform and they act with a certain bigger so up in december of seventy seven of a group
a these monks with on men at arms with soldiers sees a journal the cross and pop him in there are monastery prison in toledo in those days a good reputable monastery at its own prison as you put up different
two monks there are great ancient monastery in not fun to have a line and you can still see the prison cell their this was when lungs rarely monks and
ha ha
hasn't put in this good on a dank cell six feet by ten feet and of is an absolute solitary confinement except three our evenings a week is dragged out to take his meal kneeling in the refectory with all the other his brothers in christ seated around him
eating away he's there are kneeling to eat it and then just of top card of a sure to strip down and as they exit each one of the quips his shoulders