BTP-WP7 Chapters 20 thru 26 – The Way of Perfection by St. Teresa of Avila – Beginning to Pray with Dr. Anthony Lilles

Chapters 20 thru 26 – The Way of Perfection by St. Teresa of Avila – Beginning to Pray with Dr. Anthony Lilles

Dr. Lilles talks about the nature of vocal prayer, the prayer of meditation, and the prayer of recollection.

Saint Teresa Painting Convento de Santa Teresa Avila Castile Spain.

CHAPTER 20 – Begins to treat of prayer. Addresses souls who cannot reason with the understanding.

CHAPTER 21 – Describes the great importance of setting out upon the practice of prayer with firm resolution and of heeding no difficulties put in the way by the devil

CHAPTER 22 – Explains the meaning of mental prayer

CHAPTER 23 – Describes the importance of not turning back when one has set out upon the way of prayer. Repeats how necessary it is to be resolute

CHAPTER 24 – Describes how vocal prayer may be practised with perfection and how closely allied it is to mental prayer

CHAPTER 25 – Describes the great gain which comes to a soul when it practises vocal prayer perfectly. Shows how God may raise it thence to things supernatural

CHAPTER 26 – Continues the description of a method for recollecting the thoughts. Describes means of doing this. This chapter is very profitable for those who are beginning prayer


For the audio recordings of  St. Teresa’s “The Way of Perfection” you can visit the Discerning Hearts Spiritual Classics audio page

For other episodes in the series visit
The Discerning Hearts “The Way of Perfection with Dr. Anthony Lilles


Anthony Lilles, S.T.D. is an associate professor and the academic dean of Saint John’s Seminary in Camarillo as well as the academic advisor for Juan Diego House of Priestly Formation for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. For over twenty years he served the Church in Northern Colorado where he joined and eventually served as dean of the founding faculty of Saint John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver. Through the years, clergy, seminarians, religious and lay faithful have benefited from his lectures and retreat conferences on the Carmelite Doctors of the Church and the writings of St. Elisabeth of the Trinity.

"51ZjgQ+tcgL._SY344_BO1,204,203,2</p

BTP-WP6 Chapter 19: The Thirst of the Soul – The Way of Perfection by St. Teresa of Avila – Beginning to Pray w/Dr. Anthony Lilles

Chapter 19: The Thirst of the Soul – The Way of Perfection by St. Teresa of Avila – Beginning to Pray with Dr. Anthony Lilles

Dr. Lilles continues the discussion of the “Living Water”, as well as the nature of “spiritual thirst” and the Woman at the Well as described by St. Teresa of Avila.  We also discuss the danger of spiritual gluttony and envy in prayer.

CHAPTER 19 –
Begins to treat of prayer. Addresses souls who cannot reason with the understanding.

Saint Teresa Painting Convento de Santa Teresa Avila Castile Spain.

For the audio recordings of  St. Teresa’s “The Way of Perfection” you can visit the Discerning Hearts Spiritual Classics audio page

For other episodes in the series visit
The Discerning Hearts “The Way of Perfection with Dr. Anthony Lilles


Anthony Lilles, S.T.D. is an associate professor and the academic dean of Saint John’s Seminary in Camarillo as well as the academic advisor for Juan Diego House of Priestly Formation for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. For over twenty years he served the Church in Northern Colorado where he joined and eventually served as dean of the founding faculty of Saint John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver. Through the years, clergy, seminarians, religious and lay faithful have benefited from his lectures and retreat conferences on the Carmelite Doctors of the Church and the writings of St. Elisabeth of the Trinity.

"51ZjgQ+tcgL._SY344_BO1,204,203,2</p

Novena to Our Lady of Mount Carmel Day 7 – Discerning Hearts podcast

Our-Lady-of-Mount-Carmel-3
O Mary, Help of Christians,
you assured us that wearing your Scapular worthily
would keep us  from harm.
Protect us in both body and soul
with your continual aid.
May all that we do be pleasing to your Son and to you.
(State your request here…)

Recite the following prayers…

Our Father…
Hail Mary…
Glory Be…

Our Lady of Mount Carmel,
pray for us.

Novena to Our Lady of Mount Carmel Day 5 – Discerning Hearts podcast

our-lady-of-mt-225x300
O Mother of Fair Love,
through your goodness,
as your children,
we are called to live in the spirit of Carmel.
Help us to live in charity with one another,
prayerful as Elijah of old,
and mindful of our call to minister to God’s people.
(State your request here…)

Recite the following prayers…

Our Father…
Hail Mary…
Glory Be…

Our Lady of Mount Carmel,
pray for us.

Novena to Our Lady of Mount Carmel Day 4 – Discerning Hearts podcast


When you gave us, Gracious Lady,Our-Lady-of-Mount-Carmel-2-251x300
the Scapular as our Habit,
you called us to be not only servants,
but also your own children.
We ask you to gain for us from your Son
the grace to live as your children in joy, peace and love.
(State your request here…)

Recite the following prayers…

Our Father…
Hail Mary…
Glory Be…

Our Lady of Mount Carmel,
pray for us.

Novena to Our Lady of Mount Carmel Day 3 – Discerning Hearts podcast


O Queen of Heaven,
you gave us the Scapular as an outward sign
by which we might be known as your faithful children.
May we always wear it with honor
by avoiding sin and imitating your virtues.
Help us to be faithful to this desire of ours.
(State your request here…)

Recite the following prayers…

Our Father…
Hail Mary…
Glory Be…

Our Lady of Mount Carmel,
pray for us.

Novena to Our Lady of Mount Carmel Day 2 – Discerning Hearts podcast


Most Holy Mary, Our Mother, in your great love for us
you gave us the Holy Scapular of Mount Carmel,
having heard the prayers
of your chosen son Saint Simon Stock.
Help us now to wear it faithfully and with devotion.
May it be a sign to us of our desire to grow in holiness.

(State your request here…)

Recite the following prayers…

Our Father…
Hail Mary…
Glory Be…

Our Lady of Mount Carmel,
pray for us.

Novena to Our Lady of Mount Carmel Day 1 – Discerning Hearts podcast

O Beautiful Flower of Carmel,
most fruitful vine,
splendor of heaven,
holy and singular,
who brought forth the Son of God,
still ever remaining a pure virgin,
assist us in our necessity!
O Star of the Sea,
help and protect us!
Show us that you are our Mother!

(State your request here…)

Recite the following prayers…

Our Father…
Hail Mary…
Glory Be…

Our Lady of Mount Carmel,
pray for us.

DC40 St. Teresa of Avila pt 1– The Doctors of the Church: The Charism of Wisdom w/ Dr. Matthew Bunson



Dr. Matthew Bunson discusses the life, times and teachings of St. Teresa of Avila

  1. Born: March 28, 1515, Gotarrendura, Spain
    Died: October 4, 1582, Alba de Tormes, Spain
  2. Nationality: Spanish

For more on St. Teresa of Avila and her teachings visit her Discerning Hearts page

From Vatican.va, an excerpt from the teachings of Pope Benedict XVI

From the General Audience on St. Teresa of Avila

St Teresa, whose name was Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada, was born in Avila, Spain, in 1515. In her autobiography she mentions some details of her childhood: she was born into a large family, her “father and mother, who were devout and feared God”, into a large family. She had three sisters and nine brothers.

While she was still a child and not yet nine years old she had the opportunity to read the lives of several Martyrs which inspired in her such a longing for martyrdom that she briefly ran away from home in order to die a Martyr’s death and to go to Heaven (cf. Vida, [Life], 1, 4); “I want to see God”, the little girl told her parents.

A few years later Teresa was to speak of her childhood reading and to state that she had discovered in it the way of truth which she sums up in two fundamental principles.

On the one hand was the fact that “all things of this world will pass away” while on the other God alone is “for ever, ever, ever”, a topic that recurs in her best known poem: “Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, All things are passing away: God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices”. She was about 12 years old when her mother died and she implored the Virgin Most Holy to be her mother (cf. Vida, I, 7).

If in her adolescence the reading of profane books had led to the distractions of a worldly life, her experience as a pupil of the Augustinian nuns of Santa María de las Gracias de Avila and her reading of spiritual books, especially the classics of Franciscan spirituality, introduced her to recollection and prayer.

When she was 20 she entered the Carmelite Monastery of the Incarnation, also in Avila. In her religious life she took the name “Teresa of Jesus”. Three years later she fell seriously ill, so ill that she remained in a coma for four days, looking as if she were dead (cf. Vida, 5, 9).

In the fight against her own illnesses too the Saint saw the combat against weaknesses and the resistance to God’s call: “I wished to live”, she wrote, “but I saw clearly that I was not living, but rather wrestling with the shadow of death; there was no one to give me life, and I was not able to take it. He who could have given it to me had good reasons for not coming to my aid, seeing that he had brought me back to himself so many times, and I as often had left him” (Vida, 7, 8).

In 1543 she lost the closeness of her relatives; her father died and all her siblings, one after another, emigrated to America. In Lent 1554, when she was 39 years old, Teresa reached the climax of her struggle against her own weaknesses. The fortuitous discovery of the statue of “a Christ most grievously wounded”, left a deep mark on her life (cf. Vida, 9).

The Saint, who in that period felt deeply in tune with the St Augustine of the Confessions, thus describes the decisive day of her mystical experience: “and… a feeling of the presence of God would come over me unexpectedly, so that I could in no wise doubt either that he was within me, or that I was wholly absorbed in him” (Vida, 10, 1).

Parallel to her inner development, the Saint began in practice to realize her ideal of the reform of the Carmelite Order: in 1562 she founded the first reformed Carmel in Avila, with the support of the city’s Bishop, Don Alvaro de Mendoza, and shortly afterwards also received the approval of John Baptist Rossi, the Order’s Superior General.

In the years that followed, she continued her foundations of new Carmelite convents, 17 in all. Her meeting with St John of the Cross was fundamental. With him, in 1568, she set up the first convent of Discalced Carmelites in Duruelo, not far from Avila.

In 1580 she obtained from Rome the authorization for her reformed Carmels as a separate, autonomous Province. This was the starting point for the Discalced Carmelite Order.

Indeed, Teresa’s earthly life ended while she was in the middle of her founding activities. She died on the night of 15 October 1582 in Alba de Tormes, after setting up the Carmelite Convent in Burgos, while on her way back to Avila. Her last humble words were: “After all I die as a child of the Church”, and “O my Lord and my Spouse, the hour that I have longed for has come. It is time to meet one another”.

Teresa spent her entire life for the whole Church although she spent it in Spain. She was beatified by Pope Paul V in 1614 and canonized by Gregory XV in 1622. The Servant of God Paul VI proclaimed her a “Doctor of the Church” in 1970.

Teresa of Jesus had no academic education but always set great store by the teachings of theologians, men of letters and spiritual teachers. As a writer, she always adhered to what she had lived personally through or had seen in the experience of others (cf. Prologue to The Way of Perfection), in other words basing herself on her own first-hand knowledge.

Teresa had the opportunity to build up relations of spiritual friendship with many Saints and with St John of the Cross in particular. At the same time she nourished herself by reading the Fathers of the Church, St Jerome, St Gregory the Great and St Augustine.

Among her most important works we should mention first of all her autobiography, El libro de la vida (the book of life), which she called Libro de las misericordias del Señor [book of the Lord’s mercies].

For more visit Vatican.va

Dr. Matthew E. Bunson is a Register senior editor and a senior contributor to EWTN News. For the past 20 years, he has been active in the area of Catholic social communications and education, including writing, editing, and teaching on a variety of topics related to Church history, the papacy, the saints, and Catholic culture. He is faculty chair at Catholic Distance University, a senior fellow of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, and the author or co-author of over 50 books including The Encyclopedia of Catholic History, The Pope Encyclopedia, We Have a Pope! Benedict XVI, The Saints Encyclopedia and best-selling biographies of St. Damien of Molokai and St. Kateri Tekakwitha.

BTP-Special St. John of the Cross with Dr. Anthony Lilles – Beginning to Pray Special

In this conversation, we discuss the significance of St. John of the Cross and his relationship with St. Teresa of Avila.  Dr. Lilles will also shed some light on the relationship between the Carmelites and the Jesuits, as well as with St. John of Avila.

St. John of the Cross

 

For The Ascent of Mt. Carmel Audio Book visit this Discerning Hearts page

For commentary on various sections of The Ascent of Mt. Carmel by Dr. Lilles’ visit this Discerning Hearts page