Ruth Burrows and Carmelite mystical prayer

[Augustine]

Joysong:

We see in the writing above that St. Teresa refused to defend herself, willing to be less acceptable to others and allow them their own erroneous opinion of her.

And so much like St. Therese did, probably after St. Teresa herself. When she’d let others judge her unfairly, she realized why we musn’t judge others. When she’d take the sprinkles when doing the laundry along side other sisters, she’d try to catch them all as mortification of her pride.

I was so amazed at this that I’ve been trying myself something similar: I’m a gear-head and sometimes I drive like Jeff Gordon. Lately, I’ve been trying to curb my aggressive driving by looking for those going slower than the posted speed and getting behind them courteusly.

If we don’t do in our own life what such saints (and Doctors!) are telling us they did, love God and serve others for the love of Our Lord, the Holy Spirit will not work on us.

 

[Joysong]

Dear Augustine,

Re: I’m a gear-head and sometimes I drive like Jeff Gordon.

It is utterly refreshing to read about the personal struggles others have as they try to live out these teachings. I learned a good lesson with my driving, too - now it’s your turn to laugh!

I had made a huge wedding cake for a couple, but did not have anything very capable of keeping it in tact as I drove it in my trunk to the hall. Obviously, I only drove about 25 mph and panicked all the way there. You can imagine the fingers, looks, and blaring horns behind me! So any time I find myself behind someone driving at turtle-speed, I say to myself, “they may have a cake in the trunk!”

Thanks for sharing, Augustine. I loved the remembrance of St. Therese’s laundry episode. I have thought about you so often, and wondered how things are going for you and your wife’s process.

Warm regards,
Carole

 

[buzzcut]

I found another contemporary writer who suggests that the stages mentioned refer to St Teresa of Avila’s own prayer life, but may not apply to other people:

**St. Teresa, for example, divided the path into seven stages or “mansions”. But I don’t think we should get locked into any stage theory: it is always someone else’s retrospective view of his or her own journey, which may not include our own experiences or insights. **

Quoted from Stephan Bodian Interview with Bernadette Roberts

 

[Joysong]

Hi Buzzcut,

Oh my, that reference is so over my head! I could not finish reading it, to be honest — it seemed like I was reading Greek.

Re your bolded paragraph … I agree, and I have never promoted that we try to box ourselves in with perpetual examinations or anxiety to see where we are. I summed up my belief in the DN/S thread with these holy words from the psalm which prays, “I busy not myself with great things, with things too sublime for me. Nay, rather I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a child on its mother’s lap.”

What I do hope for all of us is that we follow with our own ability, in our own walk with the Lord, all of St. Teresa’s wise counsels that imbue virtue in us - detachment, humility, self-knowledge, abandonment, mortification, not excusing oneself, spiritual love, and the like. I pray that we are able to look at how she practiced them, and try to imitate Holy Mother insofar as we are able, NOT to obtain mystical gifts which may be the fruit of practicing virtue, but to please God who calls us to be perfect.

I saw your wish to begin at the first mansion, Buzzcut. Let’s pray together and see how the Lord would have us progress. I had merely hoped to initiate a thread, but you folks are the ones who will share and keep it alive. This is not our work, but God’s, and we rejoice that there is a place like the Forum where we can all come and meet Him in one another’s faith sharing. Kinda like the book club recently talked about in “spirituality.” Only difference is that our book will be the writings of St. Teresa, and the sharing will be on-line, rather than in our living rooms.

Warm regards,
Carole

 

[buzzcut]

Joysong:

Let’s pray together and see how the Lord would have us progress.

Good idea. BTW that lady Bernadette Roberts was a Carmelite sister for 10 years or so.

 

[NightRider]

Joysong:

Hi Geraldine,

That’s why I pictured you as a male, because NightRider suggested to me the Lone Ranger riding on a big white horse with a mask on, championing the cause of justice.

Silly, huh?

As for the terrible time in school, I do understand how sensitive and mortifying it can be. I had a very difficult german maiden name and I used to die when the poor teacher slaughtered it and the whole class roared with laughter. Every new school year! :yup:

Actually, now that Alison has been called away and we cannot continue the thread as it originated, it may be good to begin a new one and discuss some of the things you will be reading. There are many lovely people here to help you and they have a pretty good understanding. Maybe some of the folks from the old Secular Carmelite thread will join in.

I have the feeling we are about ready to close this thread.

Warm regards,
Carole

Thank you, Carole. I can just imagine how your German name was slaughtered–ach tu lieber! The things we go through in school!

I haven’t yet got my hands on St Teresa’s *Life *yet as I’m waiting on the library to call me and let me know they have received it from another branch. I will keep you posted when I get it and begin reading. God bless you!

Geraldine

 

[NightRider]

Let’s all pray for one another’s discernment and may God’s love be upon us all, each and every one!

Geraldine

 

[Augustine]

Joysong:

I had made a huge wedding cake for a couple, but did not have anything very capable of keeping it in tact as I drove it in my trunk to the hall. Obviously, I only drove about 25 mph and panicked all the way there. You can imagine the fingers, looks, and blaring horns behind me! So any time I find myself behind someone driving at turtle-speed, I say to myself, “they may have a cake in the trunk!”

That’s a really good one!

It goes about judging others according to our shortsightedness. But I liked your thought: I’ll keep in mind that some may have a cake in their trunks.

 

[ATeNumquam]

Joysong:

Although I agree with Alison that commentators are able to share their experience and help us to discover a point of view that was difficult to grasp, can we not discern that their written opinion would embrace only their own limited sphere of expertise?

Can’t let this pass without one quick comment.
Marcelle Auclair may be a great authority on the background of St Teresa, but I’m not aware she lived the Carmelite life. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Some commentators do indeed have a “limited sphere of expertise”, as you say above, but since the particular commentator I was recommending when I foolishly started this thread was a Carmelite prioress and novice mistress for some decades, and advised nuns outside her own community and a great many lay people, I would think her field of expertise would be almost unparalleled!
Having lived the life myself for over a decade (whatever may be said of me now, by others or indeed myself!), I am stating my belief that Ruth Burrows truly knows what she is talking about. Her powerful intellect is indisputable, and she would have studied all the background material to St Teresa & St John as well as LIVING the life, since she was, you might say a “professional” Carmelite.

I said above that I was foolish to start this thread, and I do believe I should have heeded the gut instinct I had when I looked into a Carmelite thread ages ago. Namely, that this is really Joysong’s domain. I was unwise to have trespassed upon it.
But I have learnt some very useful things, one way and another, so I thank God for that, and for all the people I have met here!

Grace builds on nature, as we have all been told, so God has plenty of work to do on each one of us! Let us try and co-operate with Him!
I sincerely wish you well with the rather ambitious thread that will start with the first Mansion, and hope it is a source of help to all who participate and contribute!

Count me out, of course!

To all who have looked into this thread and ended up disedified, I deeply regret this. Please sheet the blame home to me, because I know I went against what God was saying to me when I started posting. There have been good Carmelite threads before I muscled in on them!
I truly wish you all God’s blessings, and I really will try and do what I said - take my leave!
Love and prayers to you all!

 

[Joysong]

Hi Alison,

Marcelle Auclair may be a great authority on the background of St Teresa, but I’m not aware she lived the Carmelite life. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I really do not know if she was a Secular or what her background was, other than having a passion for the works of St. Teresa, that prompted her extraordinary journey to those cloisters in Spain. Maybe I should have mentioned that her thrust was not to explain the mansions, as was Ruth’s, but to explain her very life.

I got the impression from some of the posts here that folks wanted to know how ordinary people could possibly benefit from reading about things like mystical graces, some of whom might never be gifted with them. We looked at the simple lives, briefly, of Brother Lawrence and St. Therese.

That was the reason for mentioning Marcelle, for that was her mission - to show the “lived” sanctity of the saint in her everyday life, and provide the missing details that St. Teresa humbly passed over so as not to call attention to herself or others.

Some commentators do indeed have a “limited sphere of expertise”, as you say above, but since the particular commentator I was recommending when I foolishly started this thread was a Carmelite prioress and novice mistress for some decades, and advised nuns outside her own community and a great many lay people, I would think her field of expertise would be almost unparalleled!

I don’t dispute that, but as I mentioned, the book is out of print, and the lovely lady who intrugued us and perked our interest in the book, is unable to conclude the journey with us. We will miss you very much.

You will have to excuse my limited knowledge of RB, Alison, for I don’t have the book. I had a mistaken notion that she was simply a prioress of a monastery in (England?)
As such, I formed the impression that her sphere of “expertise” would be rather limited. You said yourself that many in the order there had difficulty reading the I.C. and were greatly confused.

Contrariwise, our orders here in my neck of the U.S. are flourishing with people of deep spiritual understanding and they do not find the descriptions difficult at all. Yet they have little or no exposure to the context of Madame Auclair’s excellent portrayal of St. Teresa’s tremendous trials. If they did, they might appreciate even more, her heroic sanctity, rather than be awed solely of her mystical graces, which can become the case if all they read is the I.C. and her Life. That may be the reason for the mis-focus RB wrote about and found it to be unhealthy.

I have to admit, this was my early focus, too, when I first read the Life, and I outgrew it in time. Most of us would be in awe, no? And most of us would be lifted to praise God after reading such things. God is such a good Shepherd, Alison, and He takes wonderful care to bring good from our wrong focus, for reading so much about her prayer life is where I developed my memory for her sayings and all.

Thanks for your comments, and please forgive me if I have offended you by my lack of knowledge concerning RB.

I am sorry you pictured this thread as my “domain,” and I pray you will consider that many other participants are the bread and butter of our learning, sharing, and helping us all to grow. You are very much a part of all of us, and I pray many others will feel welcome, as well. It is not a private area just for Carmelites. http://forum.catholic.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Carole

 

[ATeNumquam]

Joysong:

You will have to excuse my limited knowledge of RB, Alison, for I don’t have the book. I had a mistaken notion that she was simply a prioress of a monastery in (England?)
As such, I formed the impression that her sphere of “expertise” would be rather limited. You said yourself that many in the order there had difficulty reading the I.C. and were greatly confused.

Yes, she was ONLY a prioress of a Carmel in little old England, but thanks to her lived experience of the life and the grace God gave her in guiding others, and the books she wrote, her influence spread far and wide, even if she her books are not to be found in American libraries or bookstores. I’ve had no trouble getting them in libraries or bookstores here.
And I did not say that Carmelite nuns there had difficulty reading the I.C, and were greatly confused - I would never make such a generalisation! I just meant that many people do need help when they embark on a life of prayer and need some personal guidance. If you can’t easily apply what St Teresa wrote to your own prayer experience, and you don’t have a suitable director, then you need help from a commentator who DOES know the life of prayer by personal experience. To be sure, some of St Teresa’s own directors had more “head knowledge” than prayer experience, but it would be presumptuous for any of us to put ourselves on the level of the directors God sent Teresa.
Contrariwise, our orders here in my neck of the U.S. are frlourishing with people of deep spiritual understanding and they do not find the descriptions difficult at all.

Really!!!? That’s just wonderful!

I’m sorry if I offended you by my lack of knowledge concerning RB.

Why would I be offended? I am not RB’s champion or agent - I merely wanted originally to recommend her books, but I accept that they are not available to you.

I am sorry you pictured this thread as my “domain,” and I pray you will consider that many other participants are the bread and butter of our learning, sharing, and helping us all to grow. You are very much a part of all of us, and I pray many others will feel welcome, as well. It is not a private area just for Carmelites. http://forum.catholic.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

I agree wholeheartedly with what you said about the other participants, and I thank you for your kind words to me. I didn’t intend to offend you, Carole ,about the “domain” thing - but I do know when two people have a certain amount of knowledge of a subject it can be hard (such is our human weakness) not to be a little competitive, or that’s just how I felt. There is no doubt we both love Carmel and the saints of Carmel.

God bless you, dear friend!

Carole

 

[Joysong]

Dear Alison,

And I did not say that Carmelite nuns there had difficulty reading the I.C, and were greatly confused - I would never make such a generalisation!

Oops, I think I got that idea from your first post initiating this thread, that the nuns in Ruth’s Carmel could not relate to the phenomena. It suggested “confusion” to me, which no doubt occasioned the book she wrote. Probably “confusion” was not a good word to use, but that is the sense I picked up as I read that paragraph of yours. Argh, so much for our frail human communications gleaned from the internet, huh?

Alison:

One of her most notable theories (and I personally found this very helpful) was about what she terms “light on” and “light off” experiences of mystical prayer. It arose from the fact that neither she nor the vast majority of the nuns in her Carmel (or indeed any Carmel) could relate to the phenomena that accompanied St Teresa’s prayer and which she writes about as if they were the actual marks or characteristics of the various stages.

Thanks for bringing that to my attention. http://forum.catholic.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

With warm regards and a prayer,
Carole

 

[springbreeze]

Dear friends

This thread is no longer about Carmel, this thread is about personalities.

If Carmel cannot be discussed with amicable disagreement, then it would be better not to discuss it at all.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

 

[Joysong]

Dear Alison,

You mentioned something else that I thought it would be good to address:

If you can’t easily apply what St Teresa wrote to your own prayer experience, and you don’t have a suitable director, then you need help from a commentator who DOES know the life of prayer by personal experience.

In the absence of a director, I would still have difficulty reading all of these commentaries and attempting to adopt some of their guidance, without very much prayer for discerning whether or not they are correct in what they advise.

You mentioned St. Teresa’s poor directors, and we have heard from her own mouth how much harm they did her! Contrariwise, St. Therese did not have a director other than God Himself, and I speak for the benefit of the reader, that if no suitable director can be found, then abandonment and trust in God is the best way, for He will never fail such a person, as it is He who gives the grace.

St. Teresa wrote that God is so solilcitous of these souls that the devil will never easily win them away from His Majesty, who will give them a thousand interior warnings.

There I go quoting again, yet I know no other way to bring the solid food of good teaching. http://forum.catholic.com/images/smilies/redface.gif

Carole

 

[DBT]

springbreeze:

This thread is no longer about Carmel, this thread is about personalities.

Teresa -

This is only true if we choose to make it so. Can you find it in your heart to just let it go?

Thinking of you . . .

Dave.

BTW - did you get my PM?

 

[springbreeze]

DBT:

Teresa -

This is only true if we choose to make it so. Can you find it in your heart to just let it go?

Thinking of you . . .

Dave.

BTW - did you get my PM?

Dear Dave

Thank you, yes I did get your PM. I am sorry to delay replying to you. I am going out so I’ll write back later. Again sorry for that.

I have little choice in it Dave. How can I post on any Carmel thread knowing that spiritual expression is surpressed?

I’ll join Alison and I’ll take my leave sadly.

Thank you Dave for all of your kindness.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

 

[Joysong]

Teresa,

I noted your first expression before you edited your last post. It reveals your true nature. The only one keeping this thread in disruption is you.

 

[springbreeze]

Joysong:

Teresa,

I noted your first expression before you edited your last post. It reveals your true nature. The only one keeping this thread in disruption is you.

Dear Carole

No because you couldn’t possibly be to blame at all of course.

I did put in that my three year old behaves better than this. I took that out because really now I am at a loss as to what to say anymore. I am gravely ashamed to be even involved in this bickering. You won’t take a comment on the style you use and take it as purely a comment then get all heated under the collar. If I thought it was just me upset by all of this I would have let it go, but it is not just me.

Now I am at fault for using the edit feature…???

Good luck with future threads

God Bless

Teresa

 

[DBT]

springbreeze:

I have little choice in it Dave.

Cmon, Teresa! There’s always choice . . . and you’re making one. Love or honor?

I KNOW how much good is in your heart if we could only see the forest through the trees.

My prayer for peace is with you . . .

Dave.

 

[springbreeze]

Carole started an argument in email prior to this thread being made when I was going to leave this forum last week and has dragged her bad feeling in here and it’s just not acceptable.

I’m sorry peace is not something I have broken and it is something I have always sought after but I will not be domineered.