St. Teresa's Book-Mark: A Meditative Commentary - Paperback

by Brother Hermenegild Tosf (Editor), Luke of St Joseph (Author)

My Mother St. Teresa was a remarkable poetess because she was a great Saint. All the Saints are poets, although not all have left us written in rhythmic cadences the ardent sentiments of their deified souls. The foundation of poetry is truth, its distinctive trait is sentiment; its attractive gala apparel is lent to it by the imagination. An inspiration suddenly surprising one's spirit, envelops it in a nimbus of light and moves it deeply. Behold the soul of poetry! At its light all the faculties of the soul awaken, and the warmth that they irradiate communicates itself to the fancy, the heart, perhaps to the very senses; and thus, all the vital forces concentrating on the object that awakened them, the spirit sings or weeps, that is, feels itself a poet. Truth is to souls what the sun is to creation. Its light is always the same, but its effects are very different and even opposite, according to the point upon which this light is projected. If the luminous rays fall upon a quagmire, they cause germs to develop and with them poison the air we breathe. When inspiration alights upon an ignoble soul, it also becomes very dangerous, for the powers aroused within are placed at the disposal of an evil purpose; and there is nothing more dangerous than perverted genius. With the germs their light has caused to spring from the dregs of the heart or the mire of the senses, they poison the moral atmosphere and may envenom numberless souls. Saint Teresa of Jesus was thus familiar with the manner of intercourse with God; she, who figures in the first rank of the happy choir of the souls most loved by God; she, the Angel of purity, the Seraph of love and Cherub of celestial wisdom; the thrice adorned spouse, the chosen disciple and beloved daughter of Jesus, must needs be a poetess, for it is not possible to be nearly always in conscious union with infinite Truth and not become rapt in the splendors of His divine light; to feel the constant presence of that infinite Beauty and not become sweetly captivated by it; to have a foretaste of the sweetness of that life above, and not experience a weariness and sadness, and feel a dislikefor the things below-to feel one's self so tenderly caressed as a daughter of God and not to be filled with unshakable hope in His divine promises. Saint Teresa of Avila writes: "Let nothing trouble thee, Let nothing affright thee. All things are passing; God only is changeless. Patience gains all things, Who hath God, wanteth nothing, God alone sufficeth. Let us consider this thought from the author: "Here is the dividing line that separates naturalism or rationalism from Catholicism. The former wants to establish harmony in our being, by quenching all idea, all sentiment of the infinite; erasing all traces of God imprinted in our souls. It pretends to counterbalance this most distressful world of the human spirit, not by raising what is less noble to what is most perfect and lofty; but on the contrary by lowering what is highest to what is less perfect, the spirit to matter. It takes away the infinite element, so that having, unlike the brute, more than material and coarse elements, tendencies and aspirations, we shall have in our soul a clear distinction between virtue and vice, between the temporal and eternal, between the aspirations and our effort to satisfy them."