← [[appendix-b-f1b|Letter 2 — St. Teresa of Ávila]] | [[formation-I-b-handbook|Table of Contents]] | [[appendix-d-f1b|The Monastery of the Incarnation — Fr. Mark O'Keefe, OSB]] → # Letter 3 — St. Teresa of Ávila Used with permission. Teresa of Jesus had been a nun of the Carmelite Monastery of the Incarnation in Avila for twentyseven years (1535—1562) when she began the Discalced Reform with the foundation of the Monastery of St. Joseph in the same city. In the Life, she speaks with great affection of the community and praises the religious spirit and sanctity of many of its nuns. In fact, she had known some truly exemplary nuns (L 7.3). Even when Teresa reluctantly returned as prioress and worked to bring some reform to the monastery—without trying to bring her own Discalced vision—she spoke with affection and respect of the nuns. But she was not without criticism. And it has been somewhat traditional—at least in more popular presentations— to take her more critical comments “and run with them” to suggest that the Incarnation was somehow decadent or in scandalous need of reform. But this does not seem at all to be the case. It is true that the monastery had its areas of laxness in observance. As we will see, in the visitation of the monastery by the Carmelite general Rubeo (Giovanni Battista Rossi) in 1566-1567, many of its nuns said the same. But as we have seen, Teresa and Rubeo—and with him, many of the nuns of the Incarnation—seem to have had different views of what Carmelite reform would mean. Rubeo’s aim was to bring the Incarnation more fully into conformity with the mitigated rule of 1432 and subsequent reform decrees. Teresa, on the other hand, wanted her reform to return more fully to the eremitical and contemplative focus of the mitigated rule of 1247 with an eye to the founding vision of the Carmelites, as she understood it. This was consistent as well with the wider “observant” reform of religious orders at the time and with the more contemplative spirituality that was partnered with it. This wider reform and spirituality were embedded in Teresa’s reading of Francisco de Osuna and others as well as in her many contacts with observant Franciscans, Dominicans, and Jesuits. As we have seen, all of the reform movements in the religious communities of the time were directed to the reclaiming of their primitive rules without subsequent mitigations. Teresa of Jesus did not launch her reform because the monastery of her profession and early religious life was decadent. She did share many of the concerns that other nuns of the community themselves expressed to their prior general at the time of his visitation. But Teresa wanted something more than what the Incarnation, even in a more fully reformed state, could provide her. Unless we see this, we do a disservice to the monastery of the Incarnation that Teresa herself never intended—and we would fail to see the true nature of Teresa’s own reform. We would further misunderstand the initial displeasure of many of the nuns of the Incarnation when Teresa was later appointed prioress there. They were not decadent nuns, fearful of reform, but they did not share the specifically Discalced vision of reform that had been initiated elsewhere by their new prioress. 40 01.24 1-24-2024Appendix D A Little Village in Itself The feminine branch of the Carmelites was only formally established in 1452—only sixty years before Teresa’s birth. The monastery of the Incarnation was founded first in 1479 as a beaterio— that is, as a community of pious women living together without formal religious profession. As was not unusual in the time, it was founded by a wealthy widow, Doña Elvira Gonzalez, together with women drawn from family and friends. Both the Dominican and the Augustinian convents in Avila had a similar history. In 1485, it moved to another location and became more formally a monastery of women. Ten years later, in 1495, the community received the deed to what had been a Jewish cemetery before the expulsion, outside the city walls. The little community moved to that location and was formally accepted as a Carmelite monastery of women in 1515, the year of Teresa’s birth. This was the location that Teresa came to know (and that is still its location to this day). The monastery subsequently grew quickly, and it became a favored place for the daughters of the prominent families of Avila. Its prioresses were generally drawn from the nobility of the area. It had a good reputation in the city, and the ever-increasing size of the community lent it a certain sense of prominence. When Teresa entered the monastery in 1535, there were about forty nuns. Only five years later, in 1540, there were 120. In 1545, the number had increased to 165. By 1566, there were almost two hundred nuns—in addition to the personal servants and boarders living in the monastery. Already in 1547, the prioress had noted overcrowding. After all, the community had grown by almost five times in only thirty years. There were many reasons that a young woman would choose to enter the monastery, and girls as young as twelve could be admitted. Some, of course, were drawn by a sincere sense of personal vocation. But others were unable to marry for a variety of reasons—whether simply unable to find a suitable husband in a time when men were being drawn into foreign wars and to the New World, because a wealthy family could not afford adequate dowries for the marriage of multiple daughters in keeping with their sense of social rank, or because the woman’s reputation was tarnished through some supposed indiscretion. In any case, except for widows, nuns, and beatas, single women were the exception in Spanish society of the time. Perhaps, as Teresa herself suggests, some women had an unconscious sense that the life of a nun would bring greater freedom than that of a married woman in the culture. (See, for example, the insight that Teresa describes in L 34.4.) In addition to the nuns and others living in the monastery itself, many other individuals were housed on the monastery precincts and grounds. There were homes for the lay administrators of the nuns’ properties; for those who collected the rents/income from the nuns’ lands, servants, gardeners, and caretakers of the monastery’s livestock; for those who processed the nuns’ grain and produce; and for chaplains, confessors, a doctor, a surgeon, and a notary. The presence of assorted mules, pigs, goats, sheep, and chickens virtually made of the monastery and its grounds a small village of its own. 41 The Spiritual and Liturgical Life of the Monastery It appears that the Divine Office and Eucharist were celebrated by the nuns of the Incarnation faithfully and reverently. There was a devout Marian and eucharistic piety in the community. The nuns received Communion once or twice a month—which was considered frequent at the time. In fact, there were fifteen to twenty days per year set for the nuns to receive Communion, and they were all generally expected to receive on those days. Teresa herself followed this practice for many years at the Incarnation, but later in her time there she began to receive daily. In order to avoid notoriety for this at-the-time unusual practice, she often received at an earlier Mass rather than at the conventual Mass where she would have been more likely to be noticed. The nuns ate only one meal a day, three days a week, from September 14 until Easter. They observed abstinence from meat on four days per week and fasted during Advent and Lent. They had public reading in their refectory. They took the discipline (self-flagellation) three times a week, a common ascetical practice among serious religious of the period. There was mandated silence in the church, the choir, the cloister, the refectory, and the cells (though, as we shall see, this was not always well observed). The nun’s constitutions mandated that each nun confess each week or at least every other week. For this purpose they had two regular Carmelite confessors (John of the Cross and another Discalced friar would replace their two Calced counterparts when Teresa later became prioress— much to the consternation of the Calced and, initially, to many of the nuns who feared they would be too harsh). But the nuns could also avail themselves of several other approved confessors from among the city’s secular and religious clergy. It appears that many of the nuns actually preferred these outside confessors, feeling that they were better formed, showed a better religious spirit, and perhaps were less prone to show favoritism among the nuns. In Rubeo’s visitation, for example, he reports that one of nuns opined that the friars would do well to read more spiritual books. A central and important part of the community’s common prayer was prayers for deceased donors and their families. The community sometimes contracted with wealthy families for specific prayers and devotions over many years, and these agreements would be witnessed by a notary. This practice typical of the time, more tightly tied the monastery to the wealthy families of the city and to its culture. It provided an important source of income, especially for special projects like repairs and building. But at the same time, it provided an overlay of prayers and devotions that could require a great deal of time beyond the communal and personal prayer of the nuns. A particularly glaring example of the institutionalization of this practice involved a wealthy landowner, Bernardo Robles, who, in 1530, made a very sizeable donation to the monastery in order to build a much needed church and choir with the promise of more funds upon his death. In return, the nuns agreed that, upon his death, his body could be interred in their church. And in perpetuity, day and night, a nun would kneel before the Blessed Sacrament with a lighted candle in her hand, praying for his soul. Robles died in 1531, and the nuns faithfully fulfilled the agreement for a year and a half. This meant, of course, that a different nun would have to be awakened each hour through the night. Eventually feeling overburdened, the nuns petitioned Rome for and received a mitigation—against the strong objections of the deceased man’s family. 42 01.24 1-24-2024Appendix D The conflict between the nuns and the family dragged on until 1545 when the final compromise was reached that the nuns agreed to pray the seven penitential psalms in choir and to offer Mass once a week for the deceased as well as keeping a special lamp burning before the Blessed Sacrament. In 1574, while prioress of the Incarnation, Teresa was able to obtain a further mitigation that required offering the regular psalms of the Divine Office for Robles and to reverently keep the special lamp burning before the Blessed Sacrament. In her reform, Teresa wanted none of this kind of entanglement with the wealthy, nor the added layers of required prayers. Social Hierarchy The social hierarchy so prevalent in society was mirrored within the monastery. Nuns who came from prominent and wealthy families, like Teresa, were addressed by the title Doña (Lady) and retained their claim on their illustrious family names. And so, Teresa was “Doña Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada.” Their former status in the world was recognized by more prominent places in choir. They were able to live in ample private cells, sometimes with more than one room. Teresa herself had a cell with two separate levels. This allowed her, like other nuns, to provide accommodations even for an extended time to female family members (as she did for several years for her sister Juana). These cells could, in fact, be bought and sold between nuns. The nuns with the necessary means could prepare—or have prepared by personal servants— their own meals in their cells with food provided by family. One nun was reported to maintain a slave. Meanwhile the nuns from poorer backgrounds lived in common dormitories and shared the common recreation space of the monastery. They ate whatever it was that the monastery provided in the common refectory. And their upkeep and sustenance were subject to the economic ups and downs of the community. There was no precise uniformity in habit. This was a source of some complaint during Rubeo’s visit. The nuns of humbler origins wore simple habits provided by the monastery. In times of financial difficulty for the community, they might find it difficult to have adequate shoes. Meanwhile, the nuns from families of means could wear habits of finer cloth, sometimes with fancy collars, lace, decorated belts, rings, and even colored petticoats. What concerned Teresa especially was the concern for personal honor, so rampant in society, which remained prominent in the monastery. Nuns could take great offense if their family status and rank were not recognized appropriately by being offered the correct greeting or their proper place. Teresa would react strongly by eliminating all titles in the monasteries of the reform and mandating a spirit of egalitarianism. Dire Economic Circumstances and Its Impact on Observance During Rubeo’s visitation of the monastery in 1566-1567, the nuns reported severe financial difficulties. He found some deficiencies in the community’s financial administration, but clearly 43 the main problem was that the large number of members seriously taxed the monastery’s financial resources. The income from the monastery’s extensive lands was significant. Such lands came to the monastery through dowries or inheritance by individual nuns. But much of what they received was not in the form of money but rather in grains and vegetables, which had to be transported and processed. On the days that the nuns ate meat, they required about 110 pounds of it, plus a large sack of potatoes and about one hundred loaves of bread. The income from their lands could only cover about a third of the regular budget of the monastery—and this only if the income were not decimated by bad harvests (which were frequent in the mid-sixteenth century). The nuns from wealthier families also brought ample dowries, and there were many of them. But beyond just the salaries of the many employees and servants and the maintenance of the nuns, there were costly expansions and constant repairs to be made. The monastery was forced to sell some of its lands, and still the community accrued a large debt. In 1565, the monastery petitioned the city government for financial assistance. An extant vow chart from the time of Teresa shows that the nuns took a vow of obedience to the Carmelite general, the prioress, and their successors according to the Rule. There was no formal vow of poverty or of enclosure, though these would have been general expectations, to some degree, flowing from the rule and constitutions. Although the nuns did not vow poverty, they were expected to give up the right to disposition over any money or property received—using them only with the permission of their superior. But because of the monastery’s economic situation, even these restrictions were only loosely enforced. It became virtually necessary for individual nuns to seek help from outside for their own upkeep. The nuns from wealthy families did not themselves feel so acutely the privations caused by economic problems. They could depend on income from family or even from their own properties. But those without outside assistance experienced poverty even in the cloister. Nuns complained to Rubeo that the monastery lacked the funds to provide them with adequate medical treatment or relief. Individually, some nuns sought additional income themselves through educating girls in their cells, taking in sewing, or even personally seeking alms. The structures and spirit of poverty were not the only casualties of the economic circumstances. The spirit of enclosure—so essential for a life of tranquility, silence, and contemplation—likewise suffered. It became necessary for the nuns to be able to come and go more frequently and for longer periods in order to relieve the monastery of the burden of their upkeep or to seek the goodwill of wealthy family and other donors toward the monastery and its needs. When the Council of Trent mandated strict cloister for nuns, it was practically impossible to realize because of the very real need for the nuns to be able to seek outside assistance. King Philip II was opposed to implementing this conciliar ruling precisely for this reason. One response to the Incarnation’s financial distress was to have nuns leave the cloister in order to eat with families and friends or even to live with them for a time. Between 1560 and 1565, as many as fifty nuns—about a third of the community—were living outside the cloister. Or nuns were sent out as companions to wealthy women who had lost husbands or children—as Teresa was ordered to do for Luisa de la Cerda in 1561. This relieved the monastery of providing for them but also served as a way to promote good relations with wealthy donors. Such visiting 44 01.24 1-24-2024Appendix D outside the monastery would rather naturally slip into comings and goings for more frivolous reasons. The monastery maintained visiting parlors in which the nuns could conduct the monastery’s business with the outside world, speak with their confessors, and visit occasionally with family and friends. But in hard economic times, it was especially important for the nuns to maintain good relations with wealthy family and friends. But these visiting parlors became places for frequent, more frivolous visits—a social pastime for the upper classes of Avila to pay a call on the nuns. Teresa herself confesses to being a frequent participant in such conversations in the parlors. It appears that men who were not family members—people of less than good repute or intention—would also come calling on the nuns. (Here we must recall that not all of the nuns entered the monastery because of a personal sense of vocation but were rather forced by other circumstances into the community.) The visiting and idle conversations extended beyond the visiting parlors to conversations from the lower windows of the monastery to people on the street below, at the door of the sacristy, or through the water conduits that allowed water to flow from outside the monastery walls into the nuns’ gardens. All of this—much of it begun or necessitated by economic stress—was bound to undermine the broader sense of observance and the spirit of recollection in the monastery. But Neither Decadent nor Scandalous Although the nuns themselves complained to Rubeo about some of the abuses or failures in observance mentioned above, they judged the community in general to have a good spirit and a solid, if sometimes shaky, observance. Rubeo’s final overall evaluation too was positive. The fact is that the nuns of the Incarnation had neither strict cloister nor a vow of strict poverty. Their unfortunate financial circumstances allowed this fact to open the door to a serious loosening of observance and even abuses in a number of areas. The majority of nuns, along with Rubeo, saw this reality. Teresa too saw it. And in her reformed monasteries, there would be both strict cloister and poverty. But the reform of Teresa was aimed at something more fundamental than bringing the monastery of her profession into better conformity with the mitigated rule of 1432. Her sisters in the community saw for themselves the same problems that Teresa saw, but she wanted something more fundamental than most of them did: a deeper reform, a return to an earlier form of the rule, and the broader and deeper reclaiming of the contemplative and eremitical spirit of the first Carmelites. --- **Source:** Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites, *Formation I Year B: I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life* (US National Formation Program, 2024).