Teresa Of Avila Quotes

Let nothing perturb you, nothing frighten you. All things pass. God does not change. Patience achieves everything.

It is love alone that gives worth to all things.

It is foolish to think that we will enter heaven without entering into ourselves.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours, Yours are the eyes through which to look out Christ's compassion to the world Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good; Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.

Love turns work into rest.

Thank God for the things that I do not own.

You pay God a compliment by asking great things of Him.

Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing frighten you. Everything passes away except God.

The important thing is not to think much but to love much; and so do that which best stirs you to love.

For prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God.

Be gentle to all, and stern with yourself.

In light of heaven, the worst suffering on earth will be seen to be no more serious than one night in an inconvenient hotel.

Accustom yourself continually to make many acts of love, for they enkindle and melt the soul.

But always when I was without a book, my soul at once became disturbed, and my thoughts wandered.

Untilled ground, however rich, will bring forth thistles and thorns; so also the mind of man.

Let nothing disturb you, nothing frighten you, all things are passing, God is unchanging. Patience gains all; nothing is lacking to those who have God: God alone is sufficient.

Union is as if in a room there were two large windows through which the light streamed in it enters in diffrent places but it all becomes one.

To reach something good, it is useful to have gone astray.

St. Teresa of Avila wrote: 'All difficulties in prayer can be traced to one cause: praying as if God were absent.' This is the conviction that we bring with us from early childhood and apply to everyday life and to our lives in general. It gets stronger as we grow up, unless we are touched by the Gospel and begin the spiritual journey. This journey is a process of dismantling the monumental illusion that God is distant or absent.

Reflect carefully on this, for it is so important that I can hardly lay too much stress on it. Fix your eyes on the Crucified and nothing else will be of much importance to you.

I would write a thousand foolish things that one might be to the point, if only it might make us praise God more.

At night a hooded monk passed by where there were no lamps. I could not see his face. I only heard these words he kept repeating: "Teach me, dear Lord, all that you know." I knew instantly a great treasure had entered my soul.

Hope, O my soul, hope. You know neither the day nor the hour. Watch carefully, for everything passes quickly, even though your impatience turns a very short time into a long one.

There is a secret place. A radiant sanctuary. As real as your own kitchen. More real than that. Constructed of the purest elements. Overflowing with the ten thousand beautiful things. Worlds within worlds. Forests, rivers. Velvet coverlets thrown over featherbeds, fountains bubbling beneath a canopy of stars. Bountiful forests, universal libraries. A wine cellar offering an intoxi cation so sweet you will never be sober again. A clarity so complete you will never again forget. This magnificent refuge is inside you. Enter. Shatter the darkness that shrouds the doorway… Believe the incredible truth that the Beloved has chosen for his dwelling place the core of your own being because that is the single most beautiful place in all of creation.

Tear your heart away from everything else; then seek God and you will surely find him.

Any true ecstast is a sign you are going in the right direction...don't let any prude tell you otherwise

We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can - namely, surrender our will and fulfill God's will in us.

The inward man is faced with a new and often dramatic task: He must come to terms with the inner tremendum. Since the God 'out there' or 'up there' is more or less dissolved in the many secular structures, the God within asks attention as never before. And just as the God outside could be experienced not only as a loving father but also as a horrible demon, the God within can be not only the source of a new creative life but also the cause of a chaotic confusion. The greatest complaint of the Spanish mystics St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross was that they lacked a spiritual guide to lead them along the right paths and enable them to distinguish between creative and destructive spirits. We hardly need emphasize how dangerous the experimentation with the interior life can be. Drugs as well as different concentration practices and withdrawal into the self often do more harm than good. On the other hand it also is becoming obvious that those who avoid the painful encounter with the unseen are doomed to live a supercilious, boring and superficial life.

I wanted to live, but 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.

I believe, unless I had a new book, I was never happy.

Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion for the world is to look out; yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good; and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now. SAINT TERESA OF AVILA

Amor saca amor.

The “interior castle” of the human soul, as Teresa of Avila called it, has many rooms, and they are slowly occupied by God, allowing us time and room to grow.

As Teresa of Avila says, “God does not give himself entirely to us, unless we give ourselves entirely to God.

Teresa of Avila says that the important thing in prayer is not to think much but to love much. The head is not a bad place to start our prayer journey. But if prayer stays there too long and does not begin to sink to the heart, it will inevitably become arid and frustrating.

Nada te turbe, nada te espante. Tudo passa; Deus não muda. A paciência tudo alcança. Quem a Deus tem, nada lhe falta. Só Deus basta.

She cherished her spiritual books and doesn't deny the debt contracted from some of them. -- Kieran Kavanaugh regarding Teresa of Avila

Let nothing upset you; Let nothing frighten you. Everything is changing; God alone is changeless. Patience attains the goal. Who has God lacks nothing; God alone fills every need. – Teresa of Avila Radiant

For at times it happens that some trifle will cause as much suffering to one as a great trial will to another; little things can bring much distress to persons who have sensitive natures. If you are not like them, do not fail to be compassionate.

Christ has no body now but mine. He prays in me, works in me, looks through my eyes, speaks through my words, works through my hands, walks with my feet and loves with my heart.

Trust God that you are where you are meant to be.

She knew that it was better to have a dream and pay a price for it than to be lukewarm. - regarding St. Teresa of Avila

Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion for the world is to look out; yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good; and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now. —SAINT TERESA OF AVILA

Not a fig shall I care then for all the devils in hell: it is they who will fear me. I do not understand these fears. "Oh, the devil, the devil!" we say, when we might be saying "God! God!" and making the devil tremble. Of course we might, for we know he cannot move a finger unless the Lord permits it. Whatever are we thinking of? I am quite sure I am more afraid of people who are themselves terrified of the devil than I am of the devil himself.

The whole aim of any person who is beginning prayer—and don’t forget this, because it is very important—should be that he work and prepare himself with determination and every effort to bring his will into conformity with God’s will.

Let us not fail him; do not fear that he will fail you. And if some time he should fail you, it will be for a greater good. The

That name--my conception of Him--extended to me a hand that led to a place where even His divine name could not exist. Why?

Sweet Love say Where, how and when What do you want of me? Yours I am, for You I was born: What do you want of me? . . .

I believe we shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavouring to know God, for, beholding His greatness we are struck by our own baseness, His purity shows our foulness, and by meditating on His humility we find how very far we are from being humble. 11.

One of these is love for each other; the second, detachment from all created things; the third, true humility, which, although I put it last, is the most important of the three and embraces all the rest.

If a person wishes to gain freedom of spirit and not be always troubled, let him begin by not being frightened by the cross, and he will see how the Lord also helps him carry it and he will gain satisfaction and profit from everything.36

Reading is of great service towards procuring recollection in any one who proceeds in this way; and it is even necessary for him, however little it may be that he reads, if only as a substitute for the mental prayer which is beyond his reach.

Teresa of Avila, a sixteenth-century Spanish mystic, wrote, “Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion is to look out to the world; yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good; yours are the hands with which God is to bless people now.

for mental prayer is nothing else, in my opinion, but being on terms of friendship with God, frequently conversing in secret with Him Who, we know, loves us.

In fact, all of your theological concepts may only serve to cool the fire of love in the will.

Being in love with God is never boring.15

Living things grow gradually, and communion with God, being the supreme of all living realities, likewise matures imperceptibly,

If we are to love someone completely, there can be no room for a competing love.

After you die, you wear what you are.

We should pray most regularly for those who give us light.

What is it we buy with this money we desire? Is it something valuable? Is it something lasting? Oh, why do we desire it? Miserable is the rest achieved that costs so dearly.

As a woman and a lover, however, I am moved by the sight of my Beloved. Where He is, I want to be. What He suffers, I want to share. Who He is, I want to be: crucified for love. —SAINT TERESA OF AVILA

Teresa of Avila makes the point that it isn't whether the prayers are memorized or not or said out loud or not that determines their value, but whether we pay attention to what we're saying and to whom we're speaking.

Let Nothing Upset You Let nothing upset you; Let nothing frighten you. Everything is changing; God alone is changeless. Patience attains the goal. Who has God lacks nothing; God alone fills every need. – Teresa of Avila

May today there be peace within May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith May you use those gifts that you have received and pass on the love that has been given to you May you be content knowing that you are a child of God Let this presence settle into your bones and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise, and love It is there for each and every one of us. —Saint Teresa of Avila

St. Teresa of Avila once said: “We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can—namely, surrender our will and fulfill God’s will in us.” For Christians not of the prosperity persuasion, surrender is a virtue; the writings of the saints are full of commands to “let go” and to submit yourself to what seems to be the will of the Almighty. All of American culture and pop psychology scream against that. Never give up on your dreams! Just keep knocking, that door is about to open! Think positively! Self-improvement guaranteed!! The entire motivational-speaking industry rests on the assumption that you can have what you want, you can be what you want. Just do it. When prosperity believers live out their daily struggles with smiles on their faces, sometimes I want to applaud. They confront the impossible and joyfully insist that God make a way. They obediently put miracle oil on their failing bodies. They give large offerings to the church and expect great things. They stubbornly get out of their hospital beds and declare themselves healed, and every now and then, it works. They are addicted to self-rule, and so am I.

I was flying. My shoulders loosened, my stride opened, my heart banged the base of my throat. I crossed Carnegie and ran up the block waving my arms. I crossed Lexington and ran up the block waving my arms. A linen-suited woman in her fifties did meet my exultant eye. She looked exultant herself, seeing me from far up the block. Her face was thin and tanned. We converged. Her warm, intelligent glance said she knew what I was doing- not because she herself had been a child but because she herself took a few loose aerial turns around her apartment every night for the hell of it, and by day played along with the rest of the world and took the streetcar. So Teresa of Avila checked her unseemly joy and hung on to the altar rail to hold herself down. The woman's smiling, deep glance seemed to read my own awareness from my face, so we passed on the sidewalk- a beautifully upright woman walking in her tan linen suit, a kid running and flapping her arms- we passed on the sidewalk with a look of accomplices who share a humor just beyond irony. What's a heart for?

You do not have to be bashful with God as some people are, in the belief that they are being humble. It

I do not need to court you with great thoughts or profound insights, for the good of my soul consists not in thinking much, but in loving much.

spiritual marriage is like rain falling from heaven into a river

May the Lord lay His hand on all that I do so that it may be in accordance with His holy will; this is always my desire, although my actions may be as imperfect as I myself am.

...Since in the centre of the soul there is a mansion reserved for God Himself...

Even saints do not smile sweetly when God throws them into mud puddles. Only pigs do that.

Contemplation and self-indulgence do not mix.

Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing upset you. Everything changes. God alone is unchanging. With patience all things are possible. Whoever has God lacks nothing. God alone is enough.

It is true that I might stumble for trying to do too much too soon, but it is also certain that I will never succeed if I hope for too little, or out of fear of failing start not at all.

Teresa of Avila writes, “My soul suffers out of desire for You.” She is expounding on Psalm 84:2, “My soul pines for You.” “Pines” is an anguished, aching desire for your lover. When was the last time your heart ached for Jesus? Have you been up in the night with tears looking into His beauty? Have you pushed the plate away out of a lack of desire for food, overwhelmed with a desire for God?

Depth of communion with the indwelling Trinity occurs only in a person intent on living the Gospel totally, one who is humble and patient, temperate and obedient, pure and kind, free of selfish clingings.

Diffident people often do not find it difficult to acquiesce to another’s decisions either because they are reluctant to assume responsibility for important decisions or because they fear failure and criticism.

I say that had you asked about meditation I could have spoken about it and counseled all to practice it. . . . But contemplation is something else. . . . This King doesn’t give Himself but to those who give themselves entirely to Him.”4

O Lord, all our troubles come to us because we do not have our eyes fixed on you. If only we looked at the path we're walking, we would soon arrive. But, we stumble and fall a thousand times and we stray because we do not set our eyes on the true Way.

Your False Self is who you think you are. Your thinking does not make it true. Your False Self is almost entirely a social construct to get you started on your life journey. It is a set of agreements between your childhood and your parents, your family, your neighbors, your school chums, your partner or spouse, and your religion. It is your “container” for your separate self. 4 Jesus would call it your “wineskin,” which he points out usually cannot hold any new wine (Mark 2: 21–22). Your ego container likes to stay “contained” and hates change. Your False Self is how you define yourself outside of love, relationship, or divine union. After you have spent many years laboriously building this separate self, with all its labels and preoccupations, you are very attached to it. And why wouldn’t you be? It’s what you know and all you know. To move beyond it will always feel like losing or dying. Perhaps you have noticed that master teachers like Jesus and the Buddha, St. Francis, all the “Teresas” (Avila, Lisieux, and Calcutta), Hafiz, Kabir, and Rumi talk about dying much more than we are comfortable with. They all know that if you do not learn the art of dying and letting go early, you will hold onto your False Self far too long, until it kills you anyway.

The love of God does not consist in tears or in this delight ad tenderness, which for the greater part we desire and find consolation in; but it consists in serving with justice and fortitude of soil and in humility. Without such service it seems to me we would be receiving everything and giving nothing.

When the Lord is pleased to withdraw, the soul is left in great loneliness; yet all the possible efforts that it might make to regain His companionship are of little avail, for the Lord gives this when He wills and it cannot be acquired. Sometimes again, companionship comes from a saint which is also a great help to us.

There is a powerful tendency in fallen human nature to drift from God-reliance to self-reliance, with the woeful results to which Teresa of Avila testified. At the very heart of the biblical revelation is a profound insight into the incapacity of the human being, apart from Christ, to live the Christian life. The primacy of grace, and our response in faith to this gift, is the clear biblical witness and an absolutely foundational element of the spiritual life. We have to be very clear on this as we proceed in exploring the elements of the spiritual journey. To neglect the very foundation, the primacy of grace, is to build a shaky structure that won't stand.

...it takes great humility to find oneself unjustly condemned and be silent, and to do this is to imitate the Lord Who set us free from all our sins. ... The truly humble person will have a genuine desire to be thought little of, and persecuted, and condemned unjustly, even in serious matters. ... It is a great help to meditate upon the great gain which in any case this is bound to bring us, and to realize how, properly speaking, we can never be blamed unjustly, since we are always full of faults, and a just man falls seven times a day, so that it would be a falsehood for us to say we have no sin. If, then, we are not to blame for the thing that we are accused of, we are never wholly without blame in the way that our good Jesus was. ... Thou knowest, my Good, that if there is anything good in me it comes from no other hands than Thine own. For what is it to Thee, Lord, to give much instead of little? True, I do not deserve it, but neither have I deserved the favors which Thou hast shown me already. Can it be that I should wish a thing so evil as myself to be thought well of by anyone, when they have said such wicked things of Thee, Who art good above all other good? ... Do Thou give me light and make me truly to desire that all should hate me, since I have so often let Thee, Who hast loved me with such faithfulness. ... What does it matter to us if we are blamed by them all, provided we are without blame in the sight of the Lord? ...meditate upon what is real and upon what is not. ... Do you suppose, ... that, if you do not make excuses for yourself, there will not be someone else who will defend you? Remember how the Lord took the Magdalen's part in the Pharisee's house and also when her sister blamed her. He will not treat you as rigorously as He treated Himself: it was not until He was on the Cross that He had even a thief to defend Him. His Majesty, then, will put it into somebody's mind to defend you; if He does not, it will be because there is no need. ...be glad when you are blamed, and in due time you will see what profit you experience in your souls. For it is in this way that you will begin to gain freedom; soon you will not care if they speak ill or well of you; it will seem like someone else's business. ... So here: it becomes such a habit with us not to reply that it seems as if they are not addressing us at all. This may seem impossible to those of us who are very sensitive and not capable of great mortification. It is indeed difficult at first, but I know that, with the Lord's help, the gradual attainment of this freedom, and of renunciation and self-detachment, is quite possible.

The great mystics of all religions agree that in the very depths of the unconscious, in every one of us, there is a living presence that is not touched by time, place or circumstance. Life has only one purpose, they add, and that is to discover this presence. The men and women who have done this – Francis of Assisi, for example, Mahatma Gandhi, Teresa of Avila, the Compassionate Buddha – are living proof of the words of Jesus Christ, ‘The kingdom of heaven is within.' But they are quick to tell us — every one of them – that no one can enter that kingdom, and discover the Ruler who lives there, who has not brought the movement of the mind under control. And they do not pretend that our own efforts to tame the mind will suffice in themselves. Grace, they remind us, is all-important. ‘Increase in my grace,’ Thomas Kempis prays, ‘that I may be able to fulfill thy words, and to work out mine own salvation.’ “The hallmark of the man or woman of God is gratitude – endless, passionate gratitude for the previous gift of spiritual awareness…. it surrounds us always. Like a wind that is always blowing," said Francis de Sales; "like fire," said Catherine of Genoa, "that never stops burning...

Even among spiritually earnest men and women only a few get beyond the first purification, because they do not persevere “in treading this narrow road that leads to life”.17 These are people who never bring themselves to give up worldly values entirely. They cut corners on time given to prayer; they engage in gossip, unkind and idle words; they live comfortably themselves and do not share much with the poor; they allow themselves minor disobediences as well as the more serious rejection of magisterial teaching; they indulge in worldly amusements and expensive tastes in dining, drinking, clothing and vacations.

One of the biggest lessons-and another gift of the dark night-is the realization that I'm not as much in control of life as I'd like to be. This is not an easy learning, especially for take-charge people like me, people who think the can-and more important, should-be in control of things. Other people are more naturally able to go with the flow of life. They deal with things as best they can and then go on to the next moment. They too have their dark nights, but they don't pester themselves. Either way, each experience of the dark night gives its gifts, leaving us freer than we were before, more available, more responsive, and more grateful. Like not knowing and lack of control, freedom and gratitude are abiding characteristics of the dark night. But they don't arrive until the darkness passes. They come with the dawn.

At the outset I must confess that I am no longer very good at telling the difference between good things and bad things. Of course there are many events in human history that can only be labeled as evil, but from the standpoint of inner individual experience the distinction has become blurred for me. Some things start out looking great but wind up terribly, while other things seem bad in the beginning but turn out to be blessings in disguise. I was diagnosed with cancer in 1995, which I thought was a bad thing. But the experience brought me closer to God and to my loved ones than I'd ever been, and that was wonderfully good. The chemotherapy felt awful, but it resulted in a complete cure, which I decided was good. I later found out it may also have caused the heart disease that now has me waiting for a heart transplant. At some point I gave up trying to decide what's ultimately good or bad. I truly do not know....Although not knowing may itself seem like a bad thing, I am convinced it is one of the great gifts of the dark night of the soul. To be immersed in mystery can be very distressing at first, but over time I have found immense relief in it. It takes the pressure off. I no longer have to worry myself to death about what I did right or wrong to cause a good or bad experience-because there really is no way of knowing. I don't have to look for spiritual lessons in every trouble that comes along. There have been many spiritual lessons to be sure, but they've given to me in the course of life; I haven't had to figure out a single one.

Love makes labour light. Love alone gives value to all things.

I did not see many examples of God “smiting” his enemies; in fact, it was usually God's friends who got smited, as Teresa of Avila noted! If God asked me to love unconditionally and universally, then it was clear that God operated in the same way.

A prayer in which a person is not aware of whom he is speaking to, what he is asking, who it is who is asking and of whom, I do not call prayer, however much the lips move.

Without contemplation, the Rosary is a body without soul, and its recitation runs the risk of becoming a mechanical repetition of formulas, in violation of the admonition of Christ: “In praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think they will be heard for their many words.

If we are truly striving to focus on Christ, rather than just being lazy in our prayer, Saint Teresa counsels us not to worry about distractions and difficulties. Worrying will only make them worse. We must do the best we can and most of all simply show up every day to be with God in prayer.

But very few of us were taught how to practice mental prayer. We feel embarrassed or tongue-tied when we try to speak to God from our hearts. What are we supposed to say? Unless someone instructs us as adults, our mental prayer is likely to be a rambling monologue about our day or a list of petitions.

I thought my life with Kelli could be balanced, mitigated,. That Irene had just been doing it all wrong these years. I' thought we could hang out like normal sisters, run errands, go for lattes with Jessica Hendy, and every now and then go off and have a little temper tantrum if Kelli go on my nerves--leave her in the car, assume she'd be fine. I'd assumed I could indulge myself if need be, that there could be some kind of fulfillment beyond my sister's care--that I didn't have to give myself over to it completely. But here's what I needed to understand--what Irene understood. Either you were all in with Kelli, or you were not. But if you were, Kelli had to become your joy. Kelli would be where you went for meaning. Kelli was what it was all about. And Irene was right about this too-- it was like faith. It was exactly like faith in that you had to stop futzing around and let it take you over. No more hemming and hawing. No more trying to have it both ways. And once you put your petty shit aside --your petty ego and your petty needs and your petty ambitions--that was when at last the world opened up. The world that was Kelli. It was a small world, a circumscribed world but it was your world and you did what you could to make it more beautiful. You focused on hygiene, nourishing meals, a pleasing home that always smelled good. That was your achievement and more important that was you. Once you accept that, you were--and this was strange to think, but the moment I thought it, I realized I put my finger on the savagely beating heart of my mother's philosophy--free. When I was a kid, my mother had a lavishly illustrated encyclopedia of saints she would sometimes flip through with me, and I remember how she always made a point of skipping over Saint Teresa of Avila . She didn't want to talk about the illustration that went with it. It was a photograph of the sculpture The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, and it was pretty obvious to me even as a child why my mother disapproved. It was a sexy sculpture. The smirking angel prepares to pierce Teresa's heart with his holy spear, and boy oh boy is Saint Teresa ready. Her eyes are closed, her lips are parted, and somehow everything about her marble body, swathed in marble clothing looks to be in motion. Saint Teresa is writhing. She's writhing because that is what it is to be a Catholic Saint. This is your fulfillment. The giving over. The letting go. The disappearance. This is what it takes

MY DAY IS ENDING Let nothing, O Lord, disturb the silence of this night. Let nothing make me afraid. For you are with me, and I am with you. Let me not be shy in your presence. Rather let me speak with you in confidence, trust, and love. For you are my father and mother, my brother and sister, my lord, my spouse. In whatever way pleases you, teach me what I must do to please you. However undeserving I am, I humbly ask you to fill this night with the gifts of your love, with the gift of yourself. For if I have you, God, I will want for nothing. You alone suffice.

It is unfortunate that one of the most common false teachings in the Church (even among faithful Catholics) is that if a person has peace, he is in God’s will or in a good place spiritually. It is very common to hear people offer the advice: “If you have peace in your decision, then it is the right decision.” The only way to determine if peace is an indication of God’s will or blessings is to know the entire context of a person’s spiritual life. This cannot be emphasized enough. All those who give this advice should simply cease to do so and instead begin to study Ignatian discernment of spirits, both first and second rules, begin to practice them diligently in daily life according to their spiritual progress, and study the writings of St. John of the Cross.

Saint Teresa of Avila.