Life of St Teresa of Jesus | Page 4

the new

French edition by P. Grégoire de S. Joseph (Paris, Poussielgue, 1900),
which may be considered as the standard edition.
In note 2 to Chap. XI. Mr. Lewis draws attention to a passage in a
sermon by S. Bernard containing an allusion to different ways of
watering a garden similar to St. Teresa's well-known comparison. Mr.
Lewis's quotation is incorrect, and I am not certain what sermon he
may have had in view. Something to the point may be found in sermon
22 on the Canticle (Migne, P. L. Vol. CLXXXIII, p. 879), and in the
first sermon on the Nativity of our Lord (ibid., p. 115), and also in a
sermon on the Canticle by one of St. Bernard's disciples (Vol.
CLXXXIV., p. 195). I am indebted to the Very Rev. Prior Vincent
McNabb, O.P., for the verification of a quotation from St. Vincent
Ferrer (Chap. XX. § 31).
Since the publication of Mr. Lewis's translation the uncertainty about
the date of St. Teresa's profession has been cleared up. Yepes, the
Bollandists, P. Bouix, Don Vicente de la Fuente, Mr. Lewis, and
numerous other writers assume that she entered the convent of the
Incarnation [4] on November 2nd, 1533, and made her profession on
November 3rd, 1534. The remaining dates of events previous to her
conversion are based upon this, as will he seen from the chronology
printed by Mr. Lewis at the end of his Preface and frequently referred
to in the footnotes. It rests, however, on inadequate evidence, namely
on a single passage in the Life [5] where the Saint says that she was not
yet twenty years old when she made her first supernatural experience in
prayer. She was twenty in March, 1535, and as this event took place
after her profession, the latter was supposed by Yepes and his followers
to have taken place in the previous November. Even if we had no
further evidence, the fact that St. Teresa is not always reliable in her
calculation should have warned us not to rely too much upon a
somewhat casual statement. In the first chapter, § 7, she positively
asserts that she was rather less than twelve years old at the death of her
mother, whereas we know that she was at least thirteen years and eight
months old. As to the profession we have overwhelming evidence that
it took place on the 3rd of November, 1536, and her entrance in the
convent a year and a day earlier. To begin with, we have the positive
statement of her most intimate friends, Julian d'Avila, Father Ribera,
S.J., and Father Jerome Gratian. Likewise doña Maria Pinel, nun of the

Incarnation, says in her deposition: "She (Teresa of Jesus) took the
habit on 2 November, 1535." [6] This is corroborated by various
passages in the Saint's writings. Thus, in Relation VII., written in 1575,
she says, speaking of herself: "This nun took the habit forty years ago."
Again in a passage of the Life written about the end of 1564 or the
beginning of the following year, [7] she mentions that she has been a
nun for over twenty-eight years, which points to her profession in 1536.
But there are two documents which place the date of profession beyond
dispute, namely the act of renunciation of her right to the paternal
inheritance and the deed of dowry drawn up before a public notary.
Both bear the date 31 October, 1536. The authors of the Reforma de los
Descalços thought that they must have been drawn up before St. Teresa
took the habit, and therefore placed this event in 1536 and the
profession in 1537, but neither of these documents is necessarily
connected with the clothing, yet both must have been completed before
profession. The Constitutions of Blessed John Soreth, drawn up in 1462,
which were observed at the convent of the Incarnation, contain the
following rule with regard to the reception and training of novices: [8]
Consulimus quod recipiendus ante susceptionem habitus expediat se de
omnibus quae habet in saeculo nisi ex causa rationabili per priorem
generalem vel provincialem fuerit aliter ordinatum. There was, indeed,
good reason in the case of St. Teresa to postpone these legal matters.
Her father was much opposed to her becoming a nun, but considering
his piety it might have been expected that before the end of the year of
probation he would grant his consent (which in the event he did the
very day she took the habit), and make arrangements for the dowry.
One little detail concerning her haste in entering the convent has been
preserved by the Reforma and the Bollandists, [9] though neither seem
to have understood its meaning. On leaving the convent of the
Incarnation for St. Joseph's in 1563, St. Teresa handed the prioress of
the former