← [[appendix-d-f1b|The Monastery of the Incarnation — Fr. Mark O'Keefe, OSB]] | [[formation-I-b-handbook|Table of Contents]] | [[appendix-f-f1b|The Dark Night — St. John of the Cross]] → # Excerpt from Love for Love — St. Teresa of Jesus Used with permission. Chapter 2: 5,6,7, 5\. After some days passed, I was thinking about how necessary it would be if monasteries of nuns were to be founded that there be friars observing the same rule. Seeing how few friars there were in this province, making me even wonder whether or not they were going to die out, I prayed to the Lord over the matter very much and wrote to Father General. In the letter, I begged him for this permission as best I knew how, giving him the reasons why it would be a great service to God. I pointed out how the difficulties that could arise were not sufficient to set aside so good a work, and suggested to him what service it would render to our Lady, to whom he was very devoted. She must have been the one who arranged it. This letter reached him while he was in Valencia, and from there he sent me the permission for the foundation of two monasteries because he desired the best religious observance for the order. So that there wouldn’t be any opposition, he made his permission subject to the approval, difficult to obtain, of both the present and the former provincial. But since I saw that the main thing was accomplished, I had special hope the Lord would do the rest. And so it happened that through the kindness of the bishop, who took up this matter as his own, both provincials gave their permission. 6\. Well then, being consoled in having the permissions, my concern grew in that there was no friar in the province that I knew of who could begin this work, nor any layman who desired to make such a start. I didn’t do anything but beg our Lord that he would awaken at least one person. Neither did I have a house or the means to get one. Here I was, a poor discalced nun, without help from anywhere—only from the Lord—weighed down with patent letters and good desires, and without there being any possibility of my getting the work started. Neither courage nor hope failed, for since the Lord had given the one thing, He would give the other. Everything now seemed very possible, and so I set to work. 7\. O greatness of God! How You manifest Your power in giving courage to an ant! How true, my Lord, that it is not because of You that those who love You fail to do great works but because of our own cowardice and pusillanimity. Since we are never determined, but full of human prudence and a thousand fears, You, consequently, my God, do not do your marvelous and great works. Who is more fond than You of giving, or of serving even at a cost to Yourself, when there is someone open to receive? May it please Your Majesty that I render You some service and that I not have to render an accounting for all that I have received, amen. Chapter 3:17 17\. A little later it happened that a young Father came there who was studying at Salamanca. He came along with another, as his companion, who told me great things about the life this Father was leading. The young Father’s name was Fray John of the Cross. I praised our Lord. And when I spoke with this young friar, he pleased me very much. I learned from him he also wanted to go to the Carthusians. Telling him what I was attempting to do, I begged him to wait until the Lord 58 would give us a monastery and pointed out the great good that would be accomplished if in his desire to improve he were to remain in his own order and that much greater service would be rendered to the Lord. He promised me he would remain as long as he wouldn’t have to wait long. When I saw that I already had two friars to begin with, it seemed to me the matter was taken care of; although I still wasn’t so satisfied with the prior, and thus I waited a while, and waited also for the sake of finding a place where they could begin. Chapter 13:1-7 1\. Before making the foundation of Valladolid, I had already agreed with both Father Fray Antonio de Jesús, who was then prior of the Carmelite monastery of St. Anne in Medina, and Fray John of the Cross, as I have already mentioned, that they would be the first to enter if a monastery for discalced friars were founded for the observance of the primitive rule. Since I had no resources for acquiring a house, I did nothing but commend the matter to our Lord. For, as I have said, I was now satisfied with these Fathers. The Lord had indeed exercised Father Fray Antonio de Jesús in trials during the year since I had spoken with him; and he suffered them with much perfection. As for Father Fray John of the Cross, no trial was necessary. Even though he had lived among the calced friars, those of the cloth, he always lived a life of great perfection and religious observance. Since the Lord had given me the chief requirement for a beginning, which was friars, He was pleased to arrange the rest. 2\. A gentleman from Avila, named Don Rafael, with whom I had never spoken, found out, I don’t know how (for I don’t remember), about my desire to make a foundation for discalced friars. He came and offered me a house he owned in a little town of very few inhabitants (I don’t think even twenty, but I don’t remember now). He kept the house there for an administrator who collected the revenue from his grain fields. Although I imagined how it might look, I praised our Lord and thanked this gentleman very much. He told me it was on the direct route to Medina del Campo and that since I had to pass by there to make the foundation in Valladolid I could see it. I told him I would, and indeed that is what I did. I left Avila with a nun companion and with Father Julián de Avila, the chaplain at St. Joseph’s in Avila, the priest I mentioned who helped me in these travels. 3\. Although we left in the morning, we got lost because we didn’t know the road; and since the place is little known, we couldn’t get much information about where it was. Thus, our traveling that day was very trying and the sun was very hot. When we thought we were near, we discovered we had just as far to go. I always remember the tiredness we felt and the wrong roads we took on that journey. The result was that we arrived shortly before nightfall. When we entered the house it was in such a state that we dared not remain there that night; it wasn’t at all clean and was filled with vermin. It had a fairly good entrance way, a room double in size, a loft, and a small kitchen. This was all we had for our monastery. I figured that the entrance way could serve as the chapel, the loft as the choir, which would adapt well, and the room for sleeping. My companion, although much better than I and very fond of penance, couldn’t bear the thought of my planning to found a monastery there and said to me: “Surely, Mother, there isn’t a soul, however good, that could put up with this. Don’t even consider it.” The Father who came with me, although he agreed with my companion, did not oppose me since I had told him my 59 intentions. We went to spend the night in the church, although not in vigil because we were exhausted. 4\. When we arrived in Medina, I spoke immediately with Father Fray Antonio, and I told him what took place and that if he would have the courage to stay there for a while, I was certain God would soon provide a remedy, and that the important thing was to begin. It seems to me I was most aware of what the Lord had done and was feeling sure, so to speak; just as I do now from what I see and even much more so because of what up till now I have seen, for at the time of my writing this there are, through the goodness of God, ten monasteries of discalced friars. And I told him he should realize that neither the provincial at that time nor the previous one would give permission—for the foundation needed their consent, as I said at the beginning — if we were seen living in a well established house. This was apart from the fact that we did not have the means for such a house. And I pointed out that in that little place and house the foundation would not attract attention. And so Fray Antonio told me that he would be willing to live not only there but in a pigsty. Fray John of the Cross was of the same mind. 5\. Now what remained was to obtain the consent of the two Fathers I mentioned because this was the condition under which our Father General granted the permission. I hoped in our Lord to obtain it, and so I told Father Fray Antonio to take care to do all he could to gather something together for this house. I went with Fray John of the Cross to the foundation of Valladolid about which I have written. And since we spent some days before establishing the enclosure on account of the workmen who were getting the house ready, there was an opportunity to teach Father Fray John of the Cross about our way of life so that he would have a clear understanding of everything, whether it concerned mortification or the style of both our community life and the recreation we have together. The recreation is taken with such moderation that it only serves to reveal the Sisters’ faults and to provide a little relief so that the rule may be kept in its strictness. He was so good that I, at least, could have learned much more from him than he from me. Yet this is not what I did, but I taught him about the lifestyle of the Sisters.” 6\. It pleased God that the provincial, Fray Alonso González, from whom I had to obtain approbation, was there. He was elderly, good natured, and without malice. I told him many things, and reminded him of the account he would have to give if he hindered a work as good as this when asked by God to carry it out. His Majesty, wanting the foundation, put him in the right disposition, for he mellowed very much. When Doña Maria de Mendoza and the bishop of Avila, her brother (who is the one who always favored and protected us) came, they convinced both him and Father Fray Angel de Salazar, the previous provincial, the one from whom I feared all the difficulty. Moreover, a certain need arose at the time for which the latter provincial had need of assistance from Doña Maria de Mendoza. This fact, I believe, helped a great deal, although even if this opportunity had not been present, our Lord would have moved the provincial’s heart just as He did the heart of Father General which was anything but inclined to the idea. 7\. Oh, God help me, how many obstacles I have seen in these business matters that seemed impossible to overcome, and how easy it was for His Majesty to remove them. And how ashamed I am not to be better after seeing what I have seen. For now as I am writing, I am growing fearful and want our Lord to make known to everyone how in these foundations we creatures have done 60 next to nothing. The Lord has directed all by means of such lowly beginnings that only His Majesty could have raised the work to what it now is. May He be always blessed, amen. Chapter 14: 6,11 6\. On the First or Second Sunday of Advent (I don’t remember which of these Sundays it was), in the year 1568, the first Mass was said in that little stable of Bethlehem, for it doesn’t seem to me the house was any better. The following Lent, while on my way to the foundation in Toledo, I passed by there. When I arrived in the morning, Father Fray Antonio was sweeping the doorway to the church with that joyful expression on his face that he always has. I said to him: “What’s this, my Father; what has become of your honor?” Telling me of his great happiness, he answered with these words: “I curse the day I had any.” When I entered the little church, I was astonished to see the spirit the Lord had put there. And it wasn’t only I, for the two merchants, my friends from Medina who had accompanied me there, did nothing else but weep. There were so many crosses, so many skulls! I never forget a little cross made for the holy water fount from sticks with a paper image of Christ attached to it; it inspired more devotion than if it had been something very expertly carved. 11\. I couldn’t thank our Lord enough when I saw that little house, which shortly before was uninhabitable, with such a spirit that everywhere I looked I found something edifying. And by the way they were living, I learned of the mortification, prayer, and good example they were giving. A gentleman and his wife, whom I knew and who lived in a nearby town, came to see me there, and they never stopped telling me about the sanctity of these Fathers and the great good they were doing in those towns. I experienced the greatest interior joy, for it seemed to me that I saw a beginning that would be of much benefit to our order and service to our Lord. May it please His Majesty that things will continue as they are now, and that my plan will indeed by realized. The merchants who had accompanied me told me that not for all the world would they have missed having gone there. What a thing virtue is, for that poverty pleased those merchants more than all their riches, and their souls were left satisfied and comforted. --- **Source:** Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites, *Formation I Year B: I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life* (US National Formation Program, 2024).