On
Archbishops, the Class of 92 and the Seventh Mansion: Saint Theresa of Avila On Archbishops,
the Class of 92 and the Seventh Mansion: Saint Theresa of Avila On Archbishops, the
Class of 92 and the Seventh Mansion: Saint Theresa of Avila

On Archbishops, the Class of 92 and the Seventh Mansion: Saint Theresa of Avila

Two days ago, Wednesday 15th October, was the Memorial of Saint Teresa of Ávila. Her feast takes place just five days after World Mental Health Day each year.  Teresa had both mental and physical health problems from a young age but battled away to become one of the great figures in the history of Spanish culture and a source of inspiration to anyone struggling. One of the most impressive things about her, especially given the Inquisitorial historical context, was that she was never afraid to say what she was thinking to powerful men in the Church. She regularly irritated them by telling them she found their piety boring! Was it Margaret Atwood who said men fear being laughed at by women? Anyway, members of the clergy were forever plotting behind her back to have her removed from the positions she held and her writings destroyed. Widely considered one of the greatest spiritual guides in history, Teresa teaches us that being an authentic follower of Christ means sometimes obeying and sometimes standing up to power.  There have been and continue to be more or less subtle reincarnations of the Inquisition and censorship in human history, inside and outside the Church (as anyone silenced by a frightened Archbishop or three or by cancel culture can testify) so Teresian courage is as necessary as ever if the Church and world are to be healthy.

Every year when this feast day comes round I vividly recall the first time ever I preached publicly - at the 7am Mass on 15th October 1994, in front of that most critical and unforgiving of congregations, the students of the Venerable English College, Rome! If we were to get out of Mass by 7.30 - essential if we were to wolf down a bit of breakfast and get out to 8.30 university lectures on time - the Saturday preacher had to keep it short but sweet! Talking of being silenced by archbishops, the Archbishop John Ward of Cardiff was presiding at Mass that morning and, as his pompous tone droned on in a seemingly endless introduction, my 2-minute preaching window was getting narrower and narrower! Basil Hume, the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and Bishop Vincent Nichols (his successor some 16 years later who is now awaiting his own successor) were among the concelebrant priests, while I was by now an increasingly nervous preaching deacon. The focus of my 120-second offering was the sense of humour for which Teresa was famous. I told how she railed against miserable, overly serious religion, claiming that “a sad nun is a bad nun” and that one miserable nun could damage religion more than a room full of demons! “From silly devotions and sour-faced saints, merciful Lord, deliver us!” is a famous prayer of Teresa’s. In her spiritual diaries she wrote how one time when she was praying in the chapel, she spied out of the corner of her eye the Mother Superior of her community - a woman for whom she felt no affection - and she muttered to God, “Lord, if I had had my way, that woman would never have been made Mother Superior!” She claims that God whispered in her heart, “Teresa, if I had had my way, she would never have been made Mother Superior!”  

In her greatest work, The Interior Castle, one of the most famous texts of Spanish Renaissance literature, after a lengthy section on the nature of prayer (what today’s world would probably call “Mental Health and its Relation to Mindfulness”) Teresa writes, “It seems to me I have explained this matter - but perhaps I’ve made it clear only to myself.” A healthy reminder to educators to remain critically reflective on our pedagogical practice! She sees this world as the lower mansions through which the soul passes as it climbs through the castle and Heaven as the “Seventh Mansion of the Soul”. In one of her poems she offers some famous advice for the dangerous points of the ascent:

“Nada te turbe, nada te espante, todo se pasa. Dios no se muda, la paciencia todo lo alcanza, quien a Dios tiene, nada le falta. Solo Dios basta”. (“Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you, all things will pass. God never changes; patience obtains all things, whoever has God lacks nothing. God alone is enough.")

That passage has helped get me through many a dark moment!

One of my favourite insights in The Interior Castle is where Teresa suggests that we are only a mature disciple of Christ and can only be an elder in the community (which anyone working in education and any parent or leader should aspire to be) if our concerns no longer focus on self but on those entrusted to our care.  When religious people wonder, “How do I get to Heaven?” Teresa would say they are asking the wrong question, because its focus is themselves. Of course, God does not expect us to ignore our own cares and concerns and to pose such questions with a healthy self-interest is fine.  But Teresa sees the preoccupation with such questions as the mark of spiritual beginners - they are the putting on of our climbing boots and rucksack, if you like, on the ascent to God.  The self, however, is not meant to be our main focus the longer we live and the further we journey through life. If it is, then that is unhealthy. The real question of a mature person is: “How can my life be given away to others?” Similarly a more mature teacher might ask, “Am I concerned with helping my students learn, grow and flourish?” The less mature: “Is their performance something I can use as evidence of how great a teacher I am?”  Once more, the two questions are not unrelated but their relative importance to me is probably indicative of something more important!  It’s a bit like when university educators ask, “How can I avoid teaching undergrads so that I can work on my next book?” Teresa would probably say there is nothing wrong with wanting to fulfil our writing potential and reach a wider audience but she might also say it is worth pondering honestly if my career is truly focused on the people I can reach (in my classroom or through my readership) or is it more likely that everything I do is, ultimately, a product of my preening narcissism?

In a similar vein, Buddhist thinkers say that I can often tell what’s wrong with the world in general and myself in particular by looking at a group-photo.  Do I react by checking if it’s a good shot of the class? Or is my first instinct to check out how I turned out? Once again Teresian wisdom would say that spiritual maturity is not about eradicating the ego - if they had had cameras in the 16th century, it would have been fine to check out how we look - but maturity is about being more content to integrate our ego into the group.  Even half-decent parents and grandparents are content to let the kids take precedence - but we have all met the football dad for whom the kids’ match on a Saturday morning is all about them! (Delete and add, if applicable, Mums and musical/dramatic performances.)

Teresa says that one of the tasks of life is to learn slowly how to blend in. Why?  Because in  the 7th Mansion of the Soul we will be part of a much larger group photo - not the class of 86 (the year I left school), nor the class of 92 (when Beckham, Giggs, Butt, Scholes and the Nevilles graduated to the Man United first team squad in a blaze of FA Youth Cup glory), but the eternal class of those who gave their lives on Earth away in acts of love towards others. In Heaven it won’t be all about us, because it will all be about God - who loves not just us, but everyone else as well. So in the 7th Mansion it will be all about us and everyone else.  Which is why we need to practise making room for others and being part of a team now, in these lower mansions.

Saint Teresa of Ávila, pray for us: that we may have the courage both to obey and to stand up and be counted; that we be kept from taking ourselves too seriously; that we will realise that if we have God in life, we have all that is necessary, whatever life throws at us; that our life’s journey will teach us that our life is not actually about us; and finally that, when our time here is done, we will enter the Seventh Mansion of the Heart. Amen.