God's Calling- Teresa and Edith

On Thursday we went to Toledo, a city that played a role in St Teresa's work and St John's life. It was a place not without difficulties and is most associated with the town in which John of the Cross was imprisoned. It is also where St Teresa began writing her Interior Castle. 

Through the maze of small medieval streets, Fr Matt guided us to the Friar's Monastery where we had Mass and then were able to walk around the garden. The views from the garden are impressive, overlooking the river that runs alongside Toledo and its suburbs. 

John of the Cross' arrest is not easy to explain and can be quite shocking when you consider it was done by his own community. Part of is the history of the time, which is too extensive for here. What can be very briefly mentioned here is part of what Fr Matt said: during this time disobedience was the major reason people would be punished, usually with imprisonment. Imprisonment for disobedience was all to common and it happened in most monasteries and families ( if they had the facilities): Thomas Aquinas was imprisoned by his own family for wanting to join the Dominicans instead of the Benedictines. What shocked was the way John of the Cross was treated, which was rare and spoke of a personal grudge. 

While much can be said about the questions that arise around obedience and disobedience and how this has changed over time, it is interesting to consider what John must have felt, and what his conviction was. A powerful motive was clearly at the root of what his superiors saw as his disobedience, he was acting for what he must have felt was a greater calling, which warranted disobedience. It is clear that John must have felt that to obey his superiors would be to go against what God was calling him to do. He had a calling and as it came from God it had to be obeyed over all else. 

What we can learn from both John's disobedience to his superiors in obeying what God called him to do and from Edith Stein's response after rea
ding Teresa's life is that something radical had been discovered. They had discovered their true selves and what this was was their discovery that they were Carmelites in the spirit and charisma of the Carmel St Teresa had brought back, that of the original Carmelites on Mount Carmel. This is what happens when you gain the type of self-knowledge Teresa saw as essential for a mature spiritual life: you discover that which you already are and this allows you to give yourself wholly to God and others. Edith in reading Teresa's Life recognised that she was before Truth but also that she could no longer live as she had, this Truth that she had encountered was both God, spoken through Teresa's life and the Truth of herself, that she was a Carmelite and only that would really fulfil her. It was the type of encounter, reflected in many saints' lives, that changes everything and makes it impossible to continue as you were before, even if it means disobedience.

Photo Credit: Audrey Hamilton 😁