Life of St Teresa of Jesus | Page 7

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 accomplished by telling him how she had
fared since their last meeting. No one who reads this remarkable
chapter can help being struck by the change that has come over Teresa:
the period of her schooling is at an end, and she is now the great
teacher of Mystical theology. Her humility does not allow her to speak
with the same degree of openness upon her achievements as she did
when making known her failings, yet she cannot conceal the Gift of
Wisdom she had received and the use she made of it.
St. Teresa's development, if extraordinary considering the degree of
spirituality she reached, was nevertheless gradual and regular. With her
wonderful power of analysis, she has given us not only a clear insight
into her interior progress, but also a sketch of the development of her

understanding of supernatural things. "It is now (i.e., about the end of
1563) some five or six years, I believe, since our Lord raised me to this
state of prayer, in its fulness, and that more than once,--and I never
understood it, and never could explain it; and so I was resolved, when I
should come thus far in my story, to say very little or nothing at all."
[22] In the following chapter she adds: "You, my father, will be
delighted greatly to find an account of the matter in writing, and to
understand it; for it is one grace that our Lord gives grace; and it is
another grace to understand what grace and what gift it is; and it is
another and further grace to have the power to describe and explain it to
others. Though it does not seem that more than the first of these--the
giving of grace--is necessary, it is a great advantage and a great grace
to understand it." [23] These words contain the clue to much that
otherwise would be obscure in the life of our Saint: great graces were
bestowed upon her, but at first she neither understood them herself nor
was she able to describe them. Hence the inability of her confessors and
spiritual advisers to guide her. Her natural gifts, great though they were,
did not help her much. "Though you, my father, may think that I have a
quick understanding, it is not so; for I have found out in many ways
that my understanding can take in only, as they say, what is given it to
eat. Sometimes my confessor used to be amazed at my ignorance: and
he never explained to me--nor, indeed, did I desire to understand--how
God did this, nor how it could be. Nor did I ever ask." [24] At first she
was simply bewildered by the favours shown her, afterwards she could
not help knowing, despite the fears of over anxious friends, that they
did come from God, and that so far from imperilling her soul made a
different woman of her, but even then she was not able to explain to
others what she experienced in herself. But shortly before the
foundation of St. Joseph's convent she received the last of the three
graces mentioned above, the Gift of Wisdom, and the scene at Toledo
is the first manifestation of it.
This explains the difference of the "Life" such as we know it from the
first version or the "Relations" preceding it. Whatever this writing was,
it still belonged to the period of her spiritual education, whereas the
volume before us is the first-fruit of her spiritual Mastership. The new
light that had come to her induced her confessors [25] to demand a
detailed work embodying everything she had learned from her heavenly

Teacher. [26] The treatise on Mystical theology contained in
Chapters
X. to XXI., the investigation of Divine locutions, Visions and
Revelations in the concluding portion of the work could have had no
place in any previous writing. While her experiences before she
obtained the Gift of Wisdom influenced but three persons (one of them
being her father), a great many profited by her increased knowledge.
[27] The earlier writings were but confidential communications to her
confessors, and if they became known to larger circles this was due to
indiscretion. But her "Life"