The Life
St. Teresa of Jesus,
of the Order of Our Lady of Carmel.
Written by Herself.
Translated from the Spanish by
David Lewis.
Third Edition Enlarged
Continues the same subject and gives counsels concerning different kinds of temptation. Suggests two remedies by which we may be freed from temptations.
1. “Nescivi.” 1 “I no longer knew anything.” This is what the “bride of the Canticles ” sings after having been brought into the “inner cellar.” 2 It seems to me that this must also be the refrain of a praise of glory on this first day of retreat in which the Master makes her penetrate the depths of the bottomless abyss so that He may teach her to fulfill the work which will be hers for eternity and which she must already perform in time, which is eternity begun and still in progress. 3 “Nescivi”! I no longer know anything, I do not want to know anything except “to
Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity
know Him, to share in His sufferings, to become like Him in His death.” 4 “Those whom God has foreknown He has also predestined to become confirmed to the image of His divine Son,” 5 the One crucified by love. When I am wholly identified with this divine Exemplar, 6 when I have wholly passed into Him and He into me, then I will fulfill my eternal vocation: the one for which God has “chosen me in Him ” 7 “in principio,” the one I will continue “in aeternum” when, immersed in the bosom of my Trinity, I will be the unceasing praise of His glory, Laudem gloriae ejus.
We would like to offer heartfelt thanks to
Miriam Gutierrez for providing for us “the voice” of Blessed Elizabeth for this series
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 benefitted from his lectures and retreat conferences on the Carmelite Doctors of the Church and the writings of Blessed Elisabeth of the Trinity. After graduating from Franciscan University of Steubenville, he completed licentiate and doctoral studies in spiritual theology at the Angelicum in Rome. In 2012, he published Hidden Mountain, Secret Garden: a theological contemplation of prayer by Discerning Hearts. Married with two young adult children pursuing their careers and a teenager still at home, he has settled in family in Oxnard, California.For other episodes in the series visit the Discerning Hearts page for Dr. Anthony Lilles
5. It is the same for the soul that has entered into the “fortress of holy recollection”: the eye of its soul, opened in the light of faith, discovers its God present, living within it; in turn it remains so present to Him, in beautiful simplicity, that He guards it with a jealous care. Then disturbances from without and tempests from within may arise; its self-esteem may be wounded: “Nescivi”! God may hide Himself, withdraw His sensible grace: “Nescivi .” Or, as St. Paul writes: “For love of Him I have forfeited everything.” Then the Master is free, free to flow into the soul, to give Himself “according to His measure.” And the soul thus simplified, unified, becomes the throne of the Unchanging One, since “unity is the throne of the Holy Trinity.”
We would like to offer heartfelt thanks to
Miriam Gutierrez for providing for us “the voice” of Blessed Elizabeth for this series
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 benefitted from his lectures and retreat conferences on the Carmelite Doctors of the Church and the writings of Blessed Elisabeth of the Trinity. After graduating from Franciscan University of Steubenville, he completed licentiate and doctoral studies in spiritual theology at the Angelicum in Rome. In 2012, he published Hidden Mountain, Secret Garden: a theological contemplation of prayer by Discerning Hearts. Married with two young adult children pursuing their careers and a teenager still at home, he has settled in family in Oxnard, California.For other episodes in the series visit the Discerning Hearts page for Dr. Anthony Lilles
The soul, by the simplicity of the gaze which it fixes on its divine object, finds itself set apart from all that surrounds it, set apart also and above all from itself. Then it is resplendent with this “knowledge of the glory of God,” of which the Apostle speaks, because it permits the divine Being to be reflected in it, “and all His attributes are communicated to it.” Truly this soul is the praise of glory of all His gifts; through everything, even the most commonplace acts, it sings the canticum magnum, the canticum novum . . . , and this canticle thrills God to His very depths.
We would like to offer heartfelt thanks to
Miriam Gutierrez for providing for us “the voice” of Blessed Elizabeth for this series
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 benefitted from his lectures and retreat conferences on the Carmelite Doctors of the Church and the writings of Blessed Elisabeth of the Trinity. After graduating from Franciscan University of Steubenville, he completed licentiate and doctoral studies in spiritual theology at the Angelicum in Rome. In 2012, he published Hidden Mountain, Secret Garden: a theological contemplation of prayer by Discerning Hearts. Married with two young adult children pursuing their careers and a teenager still at home, he has settled in family in Oxnard, California.For other episodes in the series visit the Discerning Hearts page for Dr. Anthony Lilles
10. Here faith, the beautiful light of faith appears. It alone should light my way as I go to meet the Bridegroom. The psalmist sings that He “hides Himself in darkness,” 59 then in another place he seems to contradict himself by saying that “light surrounds Him like a cloak.” 60 What stands out for me in this apparent contradiction is that I must immerse myself in “the sacred darkness” 61 by putting all my powers in darkness and emptiness ; then I will meet my Master, and “the light that surrounds Him like a cloak ” will envelop me also, for He wants His bride to be luminous with His light, His light alone, “which is the glory of God.”
We would like to offer heartfelt thanks to
Miriam Gutierrez for providing for us “the voice” of Blessed Elizabeth for this series
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 benefitted from his lectures and retreat conferences on the Carmelite Doctors of the Church and the writings of Blessed Elisabeth of the Trinity. After graduating from Franciscan University of Steubenville, he completed licentiate and doctoral studies in spiritual theology at the Angelicum in Rome. In 2012, he published Hidden Mountain, Secret Garden: a theological contemplation of prayer by Discerning Hearts. Married with two young adult children pursuing their careers and a teenager still at home, he has settled in family in Oxnard, California.For other episodes in the series visit the Discerning Hearts page for Dr. Anthony Lilles
12. “I saw a great multitude which no man could number. . . . These are they who have come out of the great tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple, and He who sits upon the throne will dwell with them. They shall neither hunger nor thirst anymore, neither shall the sun strike them nor any heat. For the Lamb will be their shepherd, and He will lead them to the fountains of the waters of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. . . .”
All these elect who have palms in their hands, 69 and who are wholly bathed in the great light 70 of God, have had first to pass through the “great tribulation,” to know this sorrow “immense as the sea,” 71 of which the psalmist sang. Before contemplating “with uncovered face the glory of the Lord,” 72 they have shared in the annihilation of His Christ; before being “transformed from brightness to brightness in the image of the divine Being,” 73 they have been conformed to the image of the Word Incarnate, the One crucified by love.
We would like to offer heartfelt thanks to
Miriam Gutierrez for providing for us “the voice” of Blessed Elizabeth for this series
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 benefitted from his lectures and retreat conferences on the Carmelite Doctors of the Church and the writings of Blessed Elisabeth of the Trinity. After graduating from Franciscan University of Steubenville, he completed licentiate and doctoral studies in spiritual theology at the Angelicum in Rome. In 2012, he published Hidden Mountain, Secret Garden: a theological contemplation of prayer by Discerning Hearts. Married with two young adult children pursuing their careers and a teenager still at home, he has settled in family in Oxnard, California.For other episodes in the series visit the Discerning Hearts page for Dr. Anthony Lilles
16. What a going out from self that implies! What a death! Let us say with St. Paul, “Quotidie morior.” 95 The great saint wrote to the Colossians, “You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” 96
That is the condition: we must be dead! Without that we may be hidden in God at certain moments; but we do not LIVE habitually in this divine Being because all our emotions, self-seekings and the rest, come to draw us out of Him.
The soul that gazes steadfastly on its Master with this “single eye which fills the whole body with light” 97 is kept “from the depths of iniquity within it 98 of which the prophet complains. “The Lord has brought it into “this spacious place” 99 which is nothing else than Himself; there everything is pure, everything is holy! O blessed death in God! O sweet and gentle loss of self in the beloved Being which permits the creature to cry out: “I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live in this body of death, I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” 100
We would like to offer heartfelt thanks to
Miriam Gutierrez for providing for us “the voice” of Blessed Elizabeth for this series
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 benefitted from his lectures and retreat conferences on the Carmelite Doctors of the Church and the writings of Blessed Elisabeth of the Trinity. After graduating from Franciscan University of Steubenville, he completed licentiate and doctoral studies in spiritual theology at the Angelicum in Rome. In 2012, he published Hidden Mountain, Secret Garden: a theological contemplation of prayer by Discerning Hearts. Married with two young adult children pursuing their careers and a teenager still at home, he has settled in family in Oxnard, California.For other episodes in the series visit the Discerning Hearts page for Dr. Anthony Lilles
17. “Coeli enarrant gloriam Dei.” 101 This is what the heavens are telling: the glory of God.
Since my soul is a heaven in which I live while awaiting the “heavenly Jerusalem,” 102 this heaven too must sing the glory of the Eternal, nothing but the glory of the Eternal.
“Day to day passes on this message.” 103 All God’s lights, all His communications to my soul are this “day which passes on to day the message of His glory.” “The command of the Lord is clear,” sings the psalmist, “enlightening the eye. . . .” 104 Consequently, my fidelity in corresponding with each of His decrees, with each of His interior commands, makes me live in His light; it too is a “message which passes on His glory.” But this is the sweet wonder: “Yahweh, he who looks at you is radiant!” 105 the prophet exclaims . The soul that by the depth of its interior gaze contemplates its God through everything in that simplicity which sets it apart from all else is a “ radiant” soul: it is “a day that passes on to day the message of His glory.”
18. “Night to night announces it.” 106 How very consoling that is! My weaknesses, my dislikes, my mediocrity , my faults themselves tell the glory of the Eternal! My sufferings of soul or body also tell the glory of my Master! David sang: “How shall I make a return to the Lord for all the good He has done for me?” This: “I will take up the cup of salvation.” 107 If I take up this cup crimsoned with the Blood of my Master and, in wholly joyous thanksgiving, I mingle my blood with that of the holy Victim, it is in some way made infinite and can give magnificent praise to the Father. Then my suffering is “a message which passes on the glory” of the Eternal.
We would like to offer heartfelt thanks to
Miriam Gutierrez for providing for us “the voice” of Blessed Elizabeth for this series
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 benefitted from his lectures and retreat conferences on the Carmelite Doctors of the Church and the writings of Blessed Elisabeth of the Trinity. After graduating from Franciscan University of Steubenville, he completed licentiate and doctoral studies in spiritual theology at the Angelicum in Rome. In 2012, he published Hidden Mountain, Secret Garden: a theological contemplation of prayer by Discerning Hearts. Married with two young adult children pursuing their careers and a teenager still at home, he has settled in family in Oxnard, California.For other episodes in the series visit the Discerning Hearts page for Dr. Anthony Lilles
