Life of St Teresa of Jesus | Page 6

I can say that she composed it to the end that her confessors might know her the better and instruct her, and also that it might encourage and animate those who learn from it the great mercy God had shown her, a great sinner as she humbly acknowledged herself to be. This book was already written when I made her acquaintance, her previous confessors having given her permission to that effect. Among these was a licentiate of the Dominican Order, the Reverend Father Pedro Iba?ez, reader of Divinity at Avila. She afterwards completed and recast this book." These two passages of Ba?ez have led the biographers of the Saint to think that she wrote her Life twice, first in 1561 and the following year, completing it in the house of Do?a Luisa de la Cerda at Toledo, in the month of June; and secondly between 1563 and 1565 at St. Joseph's Convent of Avila. They have been at pains to point out a number of places which could not have been in the "first" Life, but must have been added in the second; [15] and they took it for granted that the letter with which the book as we now have it concludes, was addressed to Father Iba?ez in 1562, when the Saint sent him the "first" Life. It bears neither address nor date, but from its contents I am bound to conclude that it was written in 1565, that it refers to the "second" Life, and that whomsoever it was addressed to, it cannot have been to Father Iba?ez, who was already dead at the time. [16] Saint Teresa asks the writer to send a copy of the book to Father Juan de Avila. Now we know from her letters that as late as 1568 this request had not been complied with, and that St. Teresa had to write twice to Do?a Luisa for this purpose; [17] but if she had already given these instructions in 1562, it is altogether incomprehensible that she did not see to it earlier, especially when the "first" Life was returned to her for the purpose of copying and completing it. The second reason which prevents me from considering this letter as connected with the "first" Life will be examined when I come to speak of the different ends the Saint had in view when writing her Life. It is more difficult to say to whom the letter was really addressed. The Reforma suggests Father Garcia de Toledo, Dominican, who bade the Saint write the history of the foundation of St. Joseph's at Avila [18] and who was her confessor at that convent. It moreover believes that he it is to whom
Chapter XXXIV.
��� 8-20 refers, and this opinion appears to me plausible. As to the latter point, Yepes thinks the Dominican at Toledo was Father Vicente Barron, the Bollandists offer no opinion, and Mr. Lewis, in his first edition gives first the one and then the other. If, as I think, Father Garcia was meant, the passage in
Chapter XVI.
�� 10, beginning "O, my son," would concern him also, as well as several passages where Vuestra Merced--you, my Father--is addressed. For although the book came finally into the hands of Father Ba?ez, it was first delivered into those of the addressee of the letter.
Whether the previous paper was a mere "Relation," or really a first attempt at a "Life," [19] there can be no dispute about its purpose: St. Teresa speaks of it in the following terms: "I had recourse to my Dominican father (Iba?ez); I told him all about my visions, my way of prayer, the great graces our Lord had given me, as clearly as I could, and begged him to consider the matter well, and tell me if there was anything therein at variance with the Holy Writings, and give me his opinion on the whole matter." [20] The account thus rendered had the object of enabling Father Iba?ez to give her light upon the state of her soul. But while she was drawing it up, a great change came over her. During St. Teresa's sojourn at Toledo she became from a pupil an experienced master in Mystical knowledge. "When I was there a religious" (probably Father Garcia de Toledo) "with whom I had conversed occasionally some years ago, happened to arrive. When I was at Mass in a monastery of his Order, I felt a longing to know the state of his soul." [21] Three times the Saint rose from her seat, three times she sat down again, but at last she went to see him in a confessional, not to ask for any light for herself, but to give him what light she could, for she wished to induce him to surrender himself more perfectly to God, and this she