Carmelite Spirituality - Poverty of Spirit, Detachment

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Joysong:
Dear Teresa,

I have considered your question in prayer, as I promised, but am still drawing a blank, except that I remembered St.Teresa wrote about the forgiveness of others in Way of Perfection, Chapter 36: catholicfirst.com/thefaith/catholicclassics/stteresa/way/wayofperfection7.cfm#CHAPTER%2036

When I looked this up, I noticed she spoke again about the “points of honor” and how detrimental they are to our union with Christ. Since we are in a “Carmelite” discussion, it seems good to me that our Saintly Teacher speak to us, and perhaps God will bring to light those things that are necessary for each of us.
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Dearest Carole

Wonderful, I remember reading a portion of this in a book I bought and gave to a dear friend for Christmas last year.

This indeed does answer my question as I perceive it. Though I will say that souls who have not been gifted with contemplation to the greater degree can also know and practice this Mercy. Souls who have been forgiven much are all the more thankful and loving to God… , Our Lord Jesus said this Himself (Who loves more, those who have been forgiven little or those who have been forgiven much?)and as such are perceptive and receptive of His Almighty and Abundant Mercy, in turn become merciful themselves to others and as such detaching themselves from themselves, because of the great love God has shown them in His Mercy are then able and quick to forgive others and really forgiveness is a word for LOVE and MERCY.

Perhaps this is more so for the advanced or infused contemplative, as such experiencing God this way, the sheer beauty of God against the sinner who is gifted with this prayer realises their depth and profound sinfullness (even in the slightest way) and as such, perceives how great and immense God’s Mercy truly is, far beyond the imagination of any human being, this invitation of God to ‘touch’ His Mercy this way serves to inspire the soul to be non-other than merciful itself.

Love and mercy (forgiveness) as Whitedove said in an earlier post are healing, primarily for the sinner before God in the Sacrament of Reconciliation which is a healing Sacrament, but also healing for those sinned against, the community, society, humanity and the world.

By the seeking and receipt of God’s forgiveness in His Blessed Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist at Holy Mass, we are truly able to grow in Poverty of Spirit, in this we are able to live by detachment and truly be poor in spirit to others and for others and for God. All of this begins in prayer with an ernest seeking to converse and know, love and serve our Divine Creator.

Simply beautiful…

Again thank you Carole…thank you so very much

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa
 
re my above post…

after comment and thought…

All of this cannot commence without prayer, it all begins in prayer with an ernest seeking to converse with and to know, love and serve Our Divine Creator.

Again thank you Carole…thank you so very much

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa
 
I really must admit that I became so confused over this question of virtue and definitions of and how to act in this circumstance and that, so confused by spiritual books eventually (though happily nowadays I love the spiritual classics) . . . also so disillusioned with my own efforts wherever perchance I could see perhaps I could do some virtuous act of some kind and my absolute inconcsistencies in these matters, that I turned to God and explained my whole quandry to Him telling Him if I indeed was to be virtuous He would have to effect it in some way or I was done for! . . . and I really deeply felt this and absolutely abandoned my quest to God in absolute darkness . . . i.e. no conviction whatsoever on a feeling level only willing to believe it, hoping against all hope, and from the fact that it says in Scripture “all things are possible to God” though I had no depth of conviction which some level of feeling always supplies-

Over the years things slowly fell into place . . . not that I am particularly virtuous for sure - rather that I insighted from the Grace of Mercy, God’s Mercy with some issue of clarity and with audacity told Him that very possibly he desperately needed the hopeless cases like me - how indeed else can He reveal (short of a more overwhelming miracle) in concrete and the ordinary every day terms just how Merciful indeed He is! If I am ever to effect advancement in virtue, it shall surely be courtesy of God’s Mercy not that I shall know it because I can’t get my mind around it! There is another benefit as I see it too, sinners are far more comfortable with me whom they know to be like them - than the virtuous whom I’ve noticed they tend to feel somewhat uncomfortable around - or is it a projection on my part . . . hence I have little opportunites to talk about God’s Mercy and other matters. This plus oft reminds me of these words of Jesus: “Do not be like a mule, needing bridle and bit, else they will not approach you” (if anyone wants the reference I’ll chase it up . . . I’ve forgotten it and its 2155 hours here in South Australia)

Regards on wings of prayer;) -
BarbaraMary
 
Dear Barbara

I really liked your post. The truth of it is so clear to me.

Whether grown in virtue or not we still all remain sinners and as scarlet a sinner as any, we are all tarred with the same brush!

It is only God’s grace that allows us to grow in virtue, His Holy Will and His sustinance that prevents us from falling into ever deeper sin.

God asks for ONE thing…FAITH. That we believe; that we have faith…as Jesus said many times in Sacred Scripture…‘Your faith has made you well’ this is not just physically and mentally, but also spiritually.

In faith we join our will to His Holy Will and in doing this , as you say, ALL things are possible in Him.

The greatest prayer we can say to God is to say ‘Lord I believe, help my unbelief’ This increasing of faith is when God in this faith, increases and develops our virtues and He does this by way of teaching us in experience and development of conscience. By showing us what LOVE is and in showing us we are taught like children to grow in all the virtues by the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

We really are children all of our lives, being guided and taught, being loved and encouraged, being scolded and purged. Until finnaly we are a child worthy of reward.

A person of true faith is loved by sinners, they are also hated by them.

Thinking of Christ’s words when He speaks about the sick have need of a doctor not those who are well, so He came to sinners, by this He means all of humanity…the tragedy of this is that the Pharisees did not see themselves as sinners!

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa
 
Dear Springbreeze -

Thank you for your post.
A couple of comments - I see the pharisees not so much as evil as stupid. They could not see the fly on the end of their nose, tho Jesus was pointing it out to them. Their logic, not to mention their spirituality in Mosaic law terms, was deeply flawed - and this stupidity that they clung to very stupidly was costing innocent people many hardships financially and morally - while building up the spiritual elite’s finances and moral standing. For the law had evolved to be multidinous on almost all matters of daily life and very hard indeed on ordinary people - often sparing the so called spiritual elite both in financial handouts for one religious reason or another, and also moral culpability. In the main I tend to think that they honestly believed they were right and that Jesus was very wrong and a heretic . . . the tragedy is that such stupidity was a factor in bringing about the horror of the crucifixion. But I do not believe the pharisees were evil - they did not believe that they sought and obtained the death of the Son of God - rather of a heretic. Their stupidity chose an evil act - though they would not have seen it that way and in absolute honesty, I should think. Hence full moral culpability becomes questionable.

The other point is that yes we are open to hatred and other negative factors as workers with Jesus . . . but “no man is greater than his master” and Jesus never really promised us a rose garden from the very beginning - not in human terms anyway . . . so we are warned about possible consequences. And very often any such persecutors are not evil - just stupid!

The intersesting thing, however, about our so called objective observations is that possibly most often they reveal the proclaimer.

Send regards with wings:tiphat:
BarbaraMary
 
Dear Springbreeze -

Hi to you, it is me again! Something was niggling at me and I knew it would stay on my mind in all probability delaying sleep. So I made coffee and sat outside, had a smoke, and let the niggling have a voice in the quiet . . . the pharisees in all probability where some anyway were concerned were blinded by their greed on a couple of levels. First, they were loosing ground to Jesus as the crowds followed him and as his message challenged their ground, their teachings. Were they blinded by greed for status and wealth? . . . and can we ever really know for sure? Jesus uses some pretty strong swearwords obviously of his day to hail them “You brood of vipers and whitened schepulchres” (spelling may be incorrect!) . . . their (as opposed to our, or rather my) real and intrinsic motivation for refusing Jesus perhaps we cannot be really sure about. Could they see and recognize their own true motivations in seeking and achieving his destruction?
Not ours to see.

However - often we are blinded by greed on a personal level - take the poverty in our world. I am sure I can give far more than I do. Why don’t I? Because I am worried that if I give more I will not be able to afford certain things I would like to have, that I feel I should be able to have, which is not at all need. I rationalize all this to justify the behaviour I have chosen by telling myself that any contribution I make, even if it should be extreme, cannot touch the overall problem of world poverty much at all. I can tell myself I am not vowed to Poverty - rather I lack that Faith which tells me that if I give as very much as I am able, The Lord will take care of me . . .and a very real point that I now am addressing to myself - and possibly the real lesson to be gleaned from the attitudes and actions of the pharisees.
I guess that our postings became a meditation for me as I pondered the Gospel and asked (without my asking to ask or even wanting to do so!) what is The Gospel saying to me! . . . and it is a just question that I address now to myself . . . as unready for it as I am! . . . and as ever desperately in need of God’s Grace which comes always courtesy of His Mercy.
I am all for getting spiritual realities into the vernacular and into my/our very ordinary day to day living. The spiritual language we tend to use, while exceptionally beautiful and our heritage does not speak to all especially in our day. This, as I see it, is the challenge of witnessing to The Gospel in our day - to get it all, including spiritual theology and realities, into the vernacular so people can understand where it fits into their day to day living. A new language or terminology in places for ancient realities. We need to to be careful that we share definitions - very often we can use a word that is rather common - but if you ask those present for the definition, very different opinions can surface; hence we were not talking about the same matter, though we took it for granted that we were.

But I am way off the in the subject of this thread - and I am a really great fan of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of The Cross also - in fact to some high degree or other all Carmelite writings. Brother Lawrence on “The Practise of the Presence of God” is very simple and direct about the ordinary day to day and on a very important spiritual subject and reality.

Nighty Nights - perhaps now I can sleep peacefully with a challenge from our posts filed for God’s reference. I truly wish I had the courage of Poverty . . . (and with due respect) not with a “for the use of” as its expression.

Regards on a wing:tiphat:
BarbaraMary
 
Dear Barabara

I like your posting again!!

I am wide awake as it’s only 2.49pm here in the UK.

Anyways…I fully expect to see my enemies in heaven if I get there, I expect to see Pharisees and Sadducees as well!

It all depends on the repentant heart…and only God knows that.

But if we do not learn by others mistakes, ‘stupidity’, definite sins and indeed our own definite sins, mistakes and stupidity, then what purpose do they serve but to condemn us and everyone else?

It is impossible to sin unless we wilfully know it is a sin and continue to sin anyway. However there are some human actions across the board for all humanity regardless of faith/no faith, things that are a definite sin and we know the harm they will cause, but may still proceed to committ them.

Ignorance per say is not an excuse to sin, it is our responsibility to KNOW and learn what God requires of us, it is not an excuse to simply say, ‘we heard what was told us but we didn’t listen’. In the case of the Pharisees they didn’t listen, their pride prevented them from doing so, but the poor old Pharisee does get a hard deal in history. What a lesson they have taught all of humanity through Christ Jesus and in this we are endebted to them! I fully expect to see Pharisees in heaven, infact I won’t be surprised to see many a soul in heaven people generally thought would not be there.

In God all things are possible

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa
 
As I read about the pharisees in the preceding posts, it did not register with me that their problem was simply a case of stupidity. One of the most poignant and telling verses in scripture which reveals the malice of Christ’s crucifixion, is Mt. 27:18, where the evangelist wrote of Pilate, “He knew, of course, that it was out of jealousy that they had handed Him over.”

Although I have suffered terribly at the hands of others in my life, the vice lately that causes me the most interior agony is the pride of a pharisaical spirit who denounces any christian that does not possess a viewpoint in agreement with theirs. One can almost feel the glee manifested beneath their words as they delight in verbal put-downs and public exposure. No wonder God expelled Lucifer!

This must be at the very root of St. Teresa’s teaching - that we must truly guard against these thoughts of precedence, these “points of honor,” as I shared in the beginning of this thread. If such thoughts were capable of causing the religious leaders to crucify Our Lord, these same types of persons would not hesitate to crucify members of His Body. Inwardly preening oneself with belief in their own self-excellence is a blindness that becomes almost impossible to cure. We can find this same vice in the leaders who thwarted the apostles in the book of Acts, and scripture bears witness, again, that it was due to jealousy.

Would any readers like to share how they mastered and overcame these tendencies in themselves? St. Teresa’s personal testimony provided us with a few good examples to show us how she practiced it.
 
Dear Carole

A lovely post dear friend.

The moment I have took pride in anything, made any attempt to congratulate myself or made an inward glance of pride, the following sequence of events always serve to show me how awful I am in doing this, that I have nothing to take pride in but Christ Jesus and no-one or nothing to boast and brag about but Christ Jesus.(It is as though God says…You think you are great? I will show you how great you are when you have pride, you are nothing without Me, you are lost and floundering without Me. But because I love you, I will teach you this lesson and the illusion of what pride does to a soul)

Everytime I have been weak and held these thoughts of superiority in myself, which is afterall what we are doing when we do this, I have been dramatically cut down to size, made so small as to remember who I am and who I am cannot be truly known unless I live in union with God.

Immediately these thoughts pervade my mind, I am shown to be the weakest sinner alive, who am I indeed who thinks they can take such praise in theirself forgetting by Whom all these things came to me by? I will sin and it will always be a sin that is at the root of this pride or to do with whatever my pride was about and it will serve as a purpose and a lesson and if we do not notice these signs from the Almighty, if we shrug off His call back to humility and poverty of spirit, we then will proceed to grow further in pride. I am a person of signs, I look closely at what people are doing and saying, what I am doing and saying, I listen closely to God and try and hear Him in all things.

When I have been prone to the shortcomings of pride, He has made me so very small as to remember who is greater. He has shown me how great the small are. Forgive me friends, I am finding this in my words, hard to convey,but suffice to say, it is similar to the Prayer of Recollection, I am called to remember Christ Jesus who is so small and in being so, is so great. This in repetition is a constant enlightening as we learn each sin of pride can indeed teach us a lesson in how humble and poor of spirit our Lord is and how much He has to teach us.

My consolation is that I will never be as perfect as my Lord Jesus Christ, but in recognising how awful I am and being called to recollect how beautiful the Lord is, serves to highlight and teach me to forget my ‘self’ and I will be learning this all of my living days.

If anyone says to you they are free of such sins they are lying. No-one is free of them, but in Christ Jesus we now have the strength in our weakness to fight them by His grace.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa
 
Dear Joyson -

Thank you for your extracts from St. Teresa of Avila . . . I plan to print your entries and comments from posts that strike me and put them into a binder for reflection. Although I haven’t had time to read all the posts, I hope this Carmelite reflection thread keeps on developing. I have had very close connections with Carmel for 40 years now. I’m back to school this coming week and time keeps pressing on me - hence I have little time to read with care all posts from my computer screen. But decided I should print and put into a binder for spiritual reading and reflection.
Regards on the wing:blessyou:
BarbaraMary
 
I wondered if anyone else noticed in today’s gospel, the similarities in this thread with the third temptation of Christ?

It really stood out for me, and I believe it was an underscore suggested to me by the Holy Spirit to help us focus during lent on the virtue of humility, so dearly loved by St. Teresa and Our Lord.

In this temptation, the devil took Jesus up a very high mountain and promised to give him all the kingdoms of the world if He would prostrate Himelf in homage before Satan. There is something terribly demonic in our thinking, whenever we become inclined to honors and precedence as we display our virtues publicly and secretly desire adulation from others. Right from the pit of hades, huh?

Praise God for this beautiful example today. To HIM ALONE, be all honor and glory!
 
Dearest Carole

Lovely post ! Yes, the whole temptation of Christ was to tempt Him with the sin of pride which of course was what the first original sin was in Adam, being proper then Christ as the Second Adam would be subject to such temptations of pride from satan.

Christ Jesus brought rebirth to humanity in His resistance of these temptations, where the first Adam fell. By our own human efforts we are broken to be able to resist and it is Christ Jesus Who infact is our resistance and sustinance in the face of temptation if we turn our hearts to Him at the moment of temptation.

Thank you Carole for highlighting this beautiful parallel

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa
 
Dearest Carole

Lovely post dear friend ! Yes, the whole temptation of Christ was to tempt Him with the sin of pride which of course was what the first original sin was in Adam, being proper then Christ as the Second Adam would be subject to such temptations of pride from satan.

Christ Jesus brought rebirth to humanity in His resistance of these temptations, where the first Adam fell. By our own human efforts we are broken to be able to resist and it is Christ Jesus Who infact is our resistance and sustinance in the face of temptation if we turn our hearts to Him at the moment of temptation.

Thank you Carole for highlighting this beautiful parallel

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa
 
Dearest Carole

Lovely post dear friend ! Yes, the whole temptation of Christ was to tempt Him with the sin of pride which of course was what the first original sin was in Adam, being proper then Christ as the Second Adam would be subject to such temptations of pride from satan.

Christ Jesus brought rebirth to humanity in His resistance of these temptations, where the first Adam fell. By our own human efforts we are broken to be able to resist and it is Christ Jesus Who infact is our resistance and sustinance in the face of temptation if we turn our hearts to Him at the moment of temptation.

Thank you Carole for highlighting this beautiful parallel

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa
 
hello,
i have the book the collected works of st.teresa of avila volume ii, but have only read the first few chapters of the way of perfection.
i am very interested in what detachment means. does it mean to things? to other people? the opposite of attachment? thanks
 
Dear Teresa,

We had a discussion privately where I promised to obtain for you the excerpt from the Ascent where St. John of the Cross shows us the goal of bringing into divine order, our four passions of joy, grief, hope, and fear.

As I read the description, it seems to fit perfectly in this thread, as it is the ultimate test of whether or not we are truly poor in spirit, detached and walking in spiritual freedom as God’s sons and daughters. So I thought it would benefit our readers as well.

St. John of the Cross, Ascent, Book III, Chapter XXIV
  1. I wish, therefore, to propose a test whereby it may be seen when these delights of the senses aforementioned are profitable and when they are not. And it is that, whensoever a person hears music and other things, and sees pleasant things, and is conscious of sweet perfumes, or tastes things that are delicious, or feels soft touches, if his thought and the affection of his will are at once centred upon God and if that thought of God gives him more pleasure than the movement of sense which causes it, and save for that he finds no pleasure in the said movement, this is a sign that he is receiving benefit therefrom, and that this thing of sense is a help to his spirit.
In this way such things may be used, for then such things of sense subserve the end for which God created and gave them, which is that He should be the better loved and known because of them. And it must be known, furthermore, that one upon whom these things of sense cause the pure spiritual effect which I describe has no desire for them, and makes hardly any account of them, though they cause him great pleasure when they are offered to him, because of the pleasure which, as I have said, they cause him in God. He is not, however, solicitous for them, and when they are offered to him, as I say, his will passes from them at once and he abandons it to God and sets it upon Him.
  1. The reason why he cares little for these motives, although they help him on his journey to God, is that the spirit which is ready to go by every means and in every way to God is so completely nourished and prepared and satisfied by the spirit of God that it lacks nothing and desires nothing; or, if it desires anything to that end, the desire at once passes and is forgotten, and the soul makes no account of it.
But one that feels not this liberty of spirit in these things and pleasures of sense, but whose will rests in these pleasures and feeds upon them, is greatly harmed by them and should withdraw himself from the use of them.

For, although his reason may desire to employ them to journey to God, yet, inasmuch as his desire finds pleasure in them which is according to sense, and their effect is ever dependent upon the pleasure which they give, he is certain to find hindrance in them rather than help, and harm rather than profit. And, when he sees that the desire for such recreation reigns in him, he must mortify it; for, the stronger it becomes, the more imperfection he will have and the greater will be his weakness.
  1. So whatever pleasure coming from sense presents itself to the spiritual person, and whether it come to him by chance or by design, he must make use of it only for God, lifting up to Him the rejoicing of his soul so that his rejoicing may be useful and profitable and perfect; realizing that all rejoicing which implies not renunciation and annihilation of every other kind of rejoicing, although it be with respect to something apparently very lofty, is vain and profits not, but is a hindrance towards the union of the will in God.
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Dearest Carole

🙂 Thank you very much for your work in finding and posting this. I will message you soon.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you and those you love always.

Teresa
 
Dear Ruby,

I did not see your message until this evening. It seems we were both posting at about the same time.
i am very interested in what detachment means. does it mean to things? to other people? the opposite of attachment?
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It is difficult to put a quick one-line definition that would embrace the entire spiritual meaning of St. Teresa. If you take a look at the post I provided after yours, we can see a good description from St. John:
In this way such things may be used, for then such things of sense subserve the end for which God created and gave them.
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I think we can agree that much of God’s creation — persons, places, things — is not used by us with the right order for which He intended it. We fall, as humans, into “disorder” and misuse these according to our own lusts and passions. That will vary for each individual, and therein lies our penance and striving to become “detached” from anything that hinders our union with God - especially those “attachments” that lead to sin.

Detachment, to me, means that we are so free in spirit that we are able to embrace these good things of earth without becoming ensnared by them. Our first parents had this integrity prior to their sin.

As you read St. Teresa’s works, you may come across the chapter where she was staying with a very wealthy “dona” and became very afraid that the luxury to which she was exposed daily would turn her away from God. It was very enticing, and she had to mortify her attraction to these luxuries in order to remain free in spirit.

You may find help in reading back through the entire thread, Ruby, for there are some very good posts that may help clarify this for you. If not, please ask again.

Welcome to the thread, and God bless you!
Carole
 
Carol,
thank you so much. i will try and read back through the posts. i am just a beginner in reading her works, but have always been interested in spirituality. i have gone to another spiritual program in the past. it is not catholic but non-denominational. the 12 step program al-anon,which have the same 12 steps as alcoholics anonymous.i am sure you probably have heard of it. i hope i am not getting off topic. they stress detachment from the alcoholic. i am thinking it is a similar kind of detachment as st Teresa is speaking of, but like i said i am just beginning to read. thanks again for your reply
 
Dear Ruby,

My heart goes out to you, for I suspect you have a loved one in your family circle that is afflicted, and for whom you are attending Al-Anon. I myself went to a group for many years, and one of the common questions of newcomers is, "How do we learn to “let go?”

Yes, that would be a form of detachment from a person, rather than an object. Sometimes, in our effort to love, we can idolize the person beyond the limits that God would desire of us. It was this way for me, and I frequently put the preferences of my family member above God’s will for me. That doesn’t help either person, does it? I became an “enabler” as you will learn there, and it will probably lead you to the cross, as you discover that “tough love” is very often the highest expression of God’s love.

Since you are reading Way of Perfection, you probably came across the chapters where St. Teresa was attempting to detach the sisters from inordinate love for their families — very necessary for the cloister to which they were commiting their lives. We need to read this in that light, and not as one living in the world.

You may also come across a chapter where St. Teresa had an attachment to a visitor in the parlor where she was a nun, and it caused her a lot of distractions in prayer. Yet she found it extremely difficult to give up, until the Lord gave her a supernatural experience that enabled her to separate from the friend’s relations.

One more quickie - St. Therese had a love for a friend who did not return her affections or love. However, she admitted that she never neglected to pray for this friend for many years (life?). That is true detachment - not striking back, not resentful or spiteful, and continuing to love without being loved in return. Isn’t that just like Our Lord? You might enjoy reading “Hosea” in the Old Testament some time for meditation.

Kind regards,
Carole
 
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