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St. Teresa was not canonized a saint until the last year of St. Francis’ lifetime. Nonetheless, what did St. Francis de Sales see in the writings of St. Teresa of Avila?
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In the quote from above, what does St. Francis de Sales mean when he refers to St. Teresa’s “learned ignorance”?
· Because of her humility and scrupulosity, St. Teresa was told by some that her mystical visions were from the devil. It took her confessor to discern her visions and assure that they were from God. How does this illustrate the importance of spiritual guidance and direction?
B (guest): actually thats always been a bit of a area of ambiguity for me as to what my spirituality is…do we all usually have one type of spirituality?
Sister Susan Marie: Yes and no for the spirituality. I think we all gravitate to more than one but one eventually predominate
Sister Susan Marie: Or you grow into it with your commitment
Sister Susan Marie: But let’s take St Francis for ex. He was trained by Jesuits, was a member of a third order of Franciscans I think and helped to bring the Carmelites into France
Oct 20 2013, 7:12 PM
V: I am a Benedictine Oblate, but, as I’ve said many times before, my heart has been Visitandine for a long, long time
Sister Susan Marie: He and she shared a deep love for St Joseph- they had that in common, St Theresa and he
Sister Susan Marie: St Francis was the one who wrote to Pope Clement to bring the Carmelites into France.
Sister Susan Marie: When they opened the Monastery in Dijon, St Jane used to go there and talk to the Carmelite abbess.
Sister Susan Marie: It was actually Madame Acarie who mostly influenced the Order to come to France but St Francis de Sales was her spiritual director for 6 months.
Oct 20 2013, 7:17 PM
B (guest): well i guess even though the spiritualities are different there is always going to be overlap and interconnections for it is one faith and one God
Oct 20 2013, 7:17 PM
Sister Susan Marie: I never went to see a Carmelite Monastery but the influence was there from the retreat house and of course St therese sent me lots of flowers after my novenas about my vocation
Oct 20 2013, 7:17 PM
Sister Susan Marie: Yes it is the same Gospel seen thru different lenses!
Oct 20 2013, 7:16 PM
B (guest): oh wow thats incredible.
Sister Susan Marie: He loved St Theresa of Avila and felt akin to her, yet he went his own Spirit led way and now we have Salesian spirituality!
V: Carmelites deeply influenced lots of religous
Oh, St. Therese! I love her so much!
Sister Susan Marie: She goes everywhere with you!
V: oh, yes! it’s the missionary in her!
B (guest): oh wow. i felt like she followed me when i was in the states
Sister Susan Marie: Really! How?
B (guest): well the room i was at Brooklyn Visitation was St Therese
Oct 20 2013, 7:21 PM
Sister Susan Marie: Oh I forgot that! yes!
2 PM
V: Now THAT is a sign!
Sister Susan Marie: I think he saw much eloquence
amid such great humility and such firmness of mind in such great simplicity
Sister Susan Marie: When you read her writings, they diverge quite a bit, she always expresses her own incapacity and is also quite humourous at times
A: I think a spiritual director is objective and can see things you yourself can not. and hear what the Holy Spirit is guiding you to do
V: and SFDS was willing and eager to learn from her, because he saw and felt her wisdom
0 2013, 7:34 PM
Sister Susan Marie: And he was himself quite a spiritual director
Sister Susan Marie: He must have recognized such greatness of soul in her even tho she was not yet canonized while he lived
Sister Susan Marie: What I think St Francis liked too was her down to earthed ness
Sister Susan Marie: St Francis is known as a common sense saint and St Theresa of Avila certainly had a homey way of writing or speaking
Oct 20 2013, 7:42 PM
V: I think he loved the combination of her down-to-eartiness and her comitment to spirituality.
Sister Susan Marie: Both of these saints held strongly to doing the Will of God and living humbly
7:43 PM
JI: I have always loved St Teresa of Avila
V: me2,
Oct 20 2013, 7:44 PM
J: one of my favorite Saints
Sister Susan Marie: And St Francis’s treatise on the Love of God moves into the higher spiritual states and that’s where he refers to St theresa a lot
J: have such a fascination to the mystics of our church
Oct 20 2013, 7:46 PM
Am: Hi, I made it back from the catechism class. It is fun!
Oct 20 2013, 7:47 PM
Sister Susan Marie: I think he saw St Theresa as that mystic par excellence perhaps. In any case she was a lover of the Divine and certainly thats what his Treatise was all about
V: like her Interior Castle
J: yes loved that book
one of those books that draws me into God’s presence deeply.
Sister Susan Marie: Best kind of book when it can do that
Am: Theresa is straight arrow, she is precise in her writings, I think, not like, let’s say, St. Augustine who writes like a song
Oct 20 2013, 7:51 PM
Sister Susan Marie: The down to earth quality- but she can go off topic!
V: what a beautiful way of putting it,
Oct 20 2013, 7:51 PM
J: I need to read SFDS book treatise on love…sounds wonderful listening to you all
Oct 20 2013, 7:51 PM
A: haha Am I thought you were going to say straight edge-like teens say about people!
Oct 20 2013, 7:51 PM
Sister Susan Marie: Yes J- but you might want to start in Book 9 as we did in the novitiate
V: I think Treatise is harder to read than Introduction
Oct 20 2013, 7:51 PM
J: oh my 9 books? lol
Oct 20 2013, 7:51 PM
Sister Susan Marie: Very much harder
Sister Susan Marie: 12 books all told
Oct 20 2013, 7:52 PM
Sister Susan Marie: But exquisite passages
Oct 20 2013, 7:52 PM
A: wow 12?
Oct 20 2013, 7:52 PM
Sister Susan Marie: Might take a year to read it!
V: at least, SSM.
Am: that’s what I say, that’s a lot of reading
Sister Susan Marie: Usually in 2 volumes. The very first part is hardest to read for me
V: me2
Oct 20 2013, 7:53 PM
Sister Susan Marie: But it’s ultimately all about love
V: it is, and easier to appreciate for me after I had finished it the first time
J: so 12 books can be summed up in three words…”God is Love”? LOL
Sister Susan Marie: Just as you seem to get to know St Theresa from her writings I think you get a similar sense from his writings
Sister Susan Marie: ST Francis called her ” our dear Mother Theresa”
She was a heavenly friend to him and he always talked about her to others
V: It’s like The Cloud of Unknowing. The more time you spend being with the text, the deeper root it plants in your heart
Oct 20 2013, 7:55 PM
J: SSM last week you mentioned another of her books? what was it? did you mean her autobiography?
Oct 20 2013, 7:55 PM
Sister Susan Marie: The Book of Foundations?
J: oh yes that…never heard of that one
Sister Susan Marie: About her establishing all those monasteries. Almost folksy in style
V: really interesting
Oct 20 2013, 7:56 PM
J: does it also have that mystical touch?
V: I don’t think St. Teresa can write without a mystical touch
J: when I read her Interior Castle and she gets to the later mansions she describes it in such a way that made me crave for it…It seemed so real
Sister Susan Marie: True! But this book makes her very real life
Sister Susan Marie: See- her real ness penetrates her mystical spirituality to such a degree that it makes you feel you can grow that way too- which you can- given the grace and response
J: yes yes SSM…that’s it…great way of describing her and her writings
Am: I guess we must remember that saints were very real, not always maybe walking around in a mystical cloud, but also having doubts and living as the rest of us “humans
J: nature building on grace? or vice versa?
V: both and not either or
Sister Susan Marie: Both/ and?
Sister Susan Marie: Thinking alike here!
Sister Susan Marie: Definitely Amy St Theresa’s appeal lies in her very upfront “humanity”, her self-effacement in fact as well as high spirtuality
J: yes she’s the Saint Next Door
Oct 20 2013, 8:02 PM
AM: I agree, J
A: good one J
Sister Susan Marie: Yes!!
J: except that sometimes when you look in her window you see her levitating lol
Oct 20 2013, 8:04 PM
Sister Susan Marie: Ha! In the kitchen as she cooked
V: gosh, I missed that part of St. Teresa!
A: haha I just read about that and her asking the sisters to hold her down
Sister Susan Marie: Oh yes up toward the ceiling she went
V: This is a blessed place to spend part of Sunday evening