# Interior Castle Handbook Appendix C, Session 9, St. Teresa of Avila **100 Themes on Her Life and Work, 98. Jesus and His Sacred Humanity** Copyright Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites, Inc. ICS Publications, 2011. Used with permission. Teresa is not a theologian by profession. In her writings there is no treatise, not even a sketch, on christology. Yet in her life as in her work we have a case of pan christianity comparable to that of St. Paul or St. Francis of Assisi. 1\. Perhaps in no other aspect of her spiritual life did Teresa have the fortune of a formation so rich and complete. As we already noted, in her childhood she had the luck of reading the primer pages of the _Flos Sanctorum,_ the Castilian version of Gerson’s Monatésseron, which offered her the text of the Passion according to the four Gospels, illustrated with a series of vignettes capable of having a strong impact on the sensitivity of the child Teresa. Later, as an adult, she likewise had the fortune of being formed by reading the best and most copious _Life of Christ_ by the Carthusian, following step by step the history of Jesus and the biblical texts of both Testaments alluding to him. Each chapter was crowned by an emotive and absorbing prayer. Teresa will follow, moreover, in her religious life the daily course of the liturgy with frequent reading of the Gospels. 2\. In the process of her spiritual life there occurred two moments of christological experience. There preceded a period of popular piety. Teresa cultivated a devotion to certain passages from the Passion, such as the prayer in the garden, or she imitates the gestures of the women in the gospels, like the Samaritan woman or the Magdalene, she relives imaginatively the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, she unites with the Blessed Virgin in her transfixion at the foot of the cross. Still at the end of her life, on the occasion of the foundation in Burgos, she pauses before entering the city to venerate an image of the Holy Christ. Her christological piety of popular inspiration endured and coexisted with the most lofty experiences of her mystical life. Nonetheless, this second period is much stronger, all brilliant with experiences of a christological mark. During more than 25 years, Teresa lived a long time of strict personal relationship with Jesus Christ, her model, her Bridegroom and Lord. It is impossible to give the history of Teresa without fixing the outstanding milestones of this christological experience. 3\. The mystery of Jesus. For a contemplative like her, Jesus is an unfathomable mystery. He is the thicket of the mystery of God made human. He is the book where she saw the truths. He exceeds her pen in any of her exclamations: “Oh, our Emperor, supreme Goodness, Wisdom itself, without beginning, without end, without any limit to your works; they are infinite and incomprehensible, a fathomless sea of marvels, with a beauty containing all beauty, strength itself! …” (WP 22.6). It is not easy to follow Teresa in her breakdown of the mystery of Jesus. We can only highlight the more relevant facets. a)   Above all, for her Jesus is the _servant of Yahweh:_ she is amazed by the mystery of his lowering of himself. He “had no house but the stable in Bethlehem where he was born and the cross where he died” (WP 2.9). At the end of the _Interior Castle_ she will recall his condition of slave (IC 7.4.8): “there is no slave who would willingly say he is a slave, and yet it seems that Jesus is honored to be one” (WP 33.4). Her hair stands on end with only the thought of the humiliation of His Majesty in the Eucharist (L 38.19). In one of her soliloquies she is amazed at the depth of the Trinitarian mystery and has the boldness to address the Eternal Father and ask him how it is possible that he consented to it: “But you Eternal Father, how is it that you consented?” And again, “O eternal Lord! Why do you accept such a petition? Why do you consent to it? Don’t look at his love for us... for he allows himself to be crushed to pieces each day” (WP 33.3-4). b)    Servant yet Majesty. The sovereignty of Jesus is something that was not able to be diluted in his abasement, nor in the mystery of the intimacy of his communion with Teresa: “O my Lord! O my King! Who now would know how to represent your majesty! It’s impossible not to see that you in yourself are a great Emperor, for to behold your majesty is startling and the more one beholds along with this majesty, Lord, your humility and the love you show.. **.”** (L 37.6). In one of her autobiographical confidences in the _Way of Perfection_ she tells her readers of the “special delight” she feels at the recitation of the words “your kingdom shall have no end” (WP 22.1). c)  He is the absolute beauty. Teresa’s christological experience is marked by this aesthetic factor. She doesn’t tire of proclaiming his beauty (L 28.1-3). Only in seeing him “left upon me an impression of his most extraordinary beauty, and the impression remains today” (L 37.4). She dedicates one of her poems to singing of it: “Oh Beauty exceeding/ all other beauties.” d)    He is the Master. Teresa not only tastes each word pronounced by him in the Gospel, but in her mystical experience relives this discipleship. “There is no knowledge or any kind of gift that I think could amount to anything when placed alongside of what it is to hear just one word spoken from that divine mouth” (L 37.4). Teresa had written in her breviary the words of the Master: “Learn of me for I am meek and humble!” They served as a permanent reminder each time she opened the book for prayer that Jesus is the absolute model. e)    Yet above all, he is the Bridegroom. She identified him with the Bridegroom of the _Song_ _of_ _Songs._ He is the _Christ of love._ And she was enamored of him as the biblical bride who dares to repeat: “Kiss me with the kisses of your mouth.” “O my Lord and my God, and what words are these that a worm speaks them to its Creator!...But who will dare, my King, utter these words without your permission? The thought is frightening” (M 1.10). Yet at the same time Teresa dares to write a poem of loving power: “If the love You have for me,/ Is like the love I have for You...” Precisely for this reason, in the _Interior_ _Castle_ she presents the height of the Christian life as a bridal fact! The summit of the Christian life is the supreme love on the part of both lovers, Christ and the soul. 4\. The problem of the Humanity of Christ Dramatically lived by Teresa, it served to put to the test her gospel realism. Through _the_ _Humanity_ _of_ _Jesus_ she understands his gospel history, his Passion, his works and words, divine and human joined, yet historically realized in his human condition, including his body, first capable of suffering and then risen. It happened that there reached her the old spiritualist current, of neo-platonic origin, according to which high contemplation, that is, the perfect life of the Christian, became so spiritual, even to the point of excluding or passing beyond everything corporeal, so that only the spirit remained: to the exclusion as a result of the humanity of Jesus. Teresa after a brief period of wavering in which, badly counseled, she ceded to this doctrine, but then reacted against it with all her energy. “I cannot endure it,” she exclaims. She couldn’t bear that there be even a moment in the spiritual life in which one intends to avoid the humanity of Jesus. This time she reasons her thesis like a theologian by profession and arrives at the certain conclusion that all our good comes to us through the humanity of Christ. She dares to propose it as an irrevocable postulate to the theologian reader of the _Life_ (22.18), and years later she repeats it with energy in the _Interior Castle_ (IC 6.7.15). This is undoubtedly is the strongest position taken theologically by Teresa. --- **Source:** Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites, *Formation II Year B: The Interior Castle (The Seven Dwelling Places)* (US National Formation Program, 2024).