Into the Wild: a blog by the Discalced Carmelites UK

After a few days off sick with an unknown virus, we are back. We returned from Avila a week ago yesterday, the day that stands out in memory was the Friday we went to Medina del Campo. Medina was the place in which Teresa met John of the Cross. It was also St Teresa's first foundation outside of Avila, a test to the question of whether the charisma would 'travel' to another location. When St Teresa and her sisters that had travelled with her to the new foundation found that there wasn't a house but a rather dilapidated building that they would have to repair. They said the first mass in a room, that would later become the parlour, with only half a roof on it. It was in this room that St John of the Cross and St Teresa first met, we were standing on the side in which the first mass was said and St John sat when he spoke to St. Teresa. At the convent, which we had been allowed to enter as a special favour, as they only usually allow visitors on Saturdays, we met Jose Anto...

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 mo...

On Tuesday we set out for Segovia, to the Monastery of St John of the Cross, where his body rests and which is one of the few houses remaining where he lived. It also quite beautifully contains a hermitage he built in the garden of the monastery. As we set out for the top of the garden someone stopped Fr Matt saying we couldn't simply scamper about on our own because something could happen (falling off a ledge I think was the fear) and so he appointed Fr Matt as a personal supervisor! We didn't find out until later about his new 'position' as a wise father he had watched us wandered off into the garden in small groups finding our way to the hermitage without saying a word. The views from the garden are quite beautiful looking out onto the valley and the hill on which the city centre of Segovia was built. A certain peaceful silence reigns over it all, you would never think there is a road at the bottom of this hill. We then had mass at the tomb of John of the Cross insid...