Saint Teresa of Avila’s Audacious Disinterested Love of God

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

“A Roman and Apostolic Catholic, the author of this text submits himself with filial devotion to the traditional teaching of Holy Church. However, if by an oversight anything is found in it at variance with that teaching, he immediately and categorically rejects it.”

 The words “Revolution” and “Counter-Revolution” are employed here in the sense given to them by Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira in his book Revolution and Counter-Revolution, the first edition of which was published in the monthly Catolicismo, Nº 100, April 1959.

Saint of the Day, October 15, 1965

Today, by a happy coincidence, we are celebrating the feast of a great Spanish saint, Teresa of Ávila.

“Teresa,” Dom Guéranger writes, “suffered all kinds of deprivation, but worse than merely human deprivation. One day, God himself seemed to have left her. As had happened earlier to Saint Philip Vinicius, Saint Joseph Calazans, and Saint Alphonsus Liguori, she experienced the trial of being rejected and condemned, along with her spiritual daughters and sons, on behalf and by the authority of the Vicar of her Spouse. It was one of those days predicted since the Apocalypse when the ‘beast’ was allowed to wage war on saints and to defeat them. We lack the space to recount these painful incidents. In these cases, the ‘beast’ has only one way of proceeding, which it repeats itself in the tenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and even twentieth centuries, and always.

 “By allowing it to happen, God always has the same objective as the ‘beast’: to lead His people to a high degree of crucifying union with the One Who willed to be the first to taste the bitterness of wine sludge and was able to say, with more pain than anyone, ‘My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”

Indeed, Dom Guéranger narrates the martyrdom of Saint Teresa here with very eloquent words. As you know, she was a calced Carmelite (certain religious orders who wear shoes), that is to say, from the Carmelite branch of which we are Third Order members. And she wanted to reform the Order of Mount Carmel aiming precisely at restoring a spirit of mortification and penance that had ended centuries earlier. Successive Popes had granted so many mitigations of the Rule that convents of the Carmelite Order had been transformed into real hostels.

The Carmelites spent as much time as they wanted outside and returned when they felt like it. During the day, at the convent cloister, one heard love songs accompanied by guitar, which were very frequent in Spain at the time. The nuns received many, many visits, indulged in great food, obedience was almost non-existent, and there was nothing left of the spirit of Saint Elias.

Touched by grace after years of sloppiness as a nun, Teresa decided to amend herself and begin the Teresian Reformation by establishing truly observant and austere Carmelite monasteries. This work, which should have encountered universal enthusiasm, was met with tremendous opposition. All Hell moved against it, which means that part of the earth moved as well, for a massive part of the earth is under the direction of Hell. Among other elements that moved against her reform were her sisters, the calced Carmelites, her brothers, also calced Carmelites, other ecclesiastical authorities, and finally, even Rome.

At a certain moment, the Teresian Reformation work was well advanced. The Discalced Carmelites had already been founded and had many convents. Then a decree arrived from Rome, issued through the Superior General, ordering that her reform be scuttled and compelling her nuns to return to the loosely run convents she had abandoned. It was a victory of sloppiness over observance and softness versus zeal. In modern terms, it was a victory of Christian Democracy over ultramontanism. It was a terrible thing to have happened. It was definitely one of the worst days of her life. She prayed tremendously and sent letters throughout Spain asking for action to be taken to assist her good initiative.

One of these letters was addressed to King Philip II, whom she called “our holy King Felipe.” Philip II sent for the Apostolic Nuncio to ask what was happening. Philip II was an extremely intimidating character and instilled a great deal of fear, and one of a man’s greatest glories is to instill fear. Dale Carnegie thinks otherwise, he considers it is to be nice to everyone; I think precisely the opposite. Philip II instilled so much fear, that when people entered his office in the Escorial, he usually had to tell them “sosegaos” (calm down), as the person was very frightened.

You will be amazed by what I am going to say, but chroniclers recount (it is one of those harsh truths of history) that the Papal Nuncio himself was very intimidated as well. He had a bout of ‘peninsular fear’ and agreed with everything Philip II wanted. With that audience, Philip II avoided the demise of Saint Teresa’s Order.

This interaction between two remarkable characters, Philip II and Saint Teresa, who had appealed to him, would make a person with romantic sentimentality cringe. A nun appealing to the King to intimidate the Apostolic Nuncio! A person with romantic sentimentality would find something like this simply dreadful. Philip II calls the Nuncio and stops the destruction of the Carmelite Order.

His intervention allowed for the development of one of the most active dynamics of the Counter-Reformation and the whole empire of glories for the Church that ensued with the reformed Carmelite Order. Suffice it to mention the name of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus! All that was the result of Philip II’s apostolic mediation. We can see how two extraordinary people met in the history of the Church, giving the impression of constellations in the firmament of the Church.

I cannot fail to comment that profane, revolutionary, and hopelessly one-sided historians claim that the Invincible Armada was a failure of Philip II. When the Invincible Armada was defeated, Philip II had only one sublime comment, which revolutionary historians do not report. To avoid saying he had been defeated, he simply said, “I sent my fleet to fight men; it was defeated by the elements.” That means there was no defeat. It was something that God allowed for Protestant England’s punishment. This comment is well made.

He had extraordinary phrases. He was praying as they came to him to announce the victory at the Battle of Lepanto. They told him the whole thing, and, showing his great self-control and psychological distance, he simply commented: “what a great danger Don Juan of Austria ran.” Nothing more. What a fabulous thing, his sovereignty over himself! He is a great man.

Saint Teresa said even more, she said that he was a saint. I know this is not a  canonization properly speaking, but that is what she said. No one can forbid me to say so either. I would very much like to have a marble bust of Philip II that I saw on a courtyard of the Escorial Palace. I never saw anything showing so much his “physique de rôle.”  That marble bust displayed his head in a way that you do not see in any photograph. One of a man’s glories (I can say so because I do not have it) is for his head to have such an expressive shape.

There are men whose head is shaped in a way that says it all. That was Philip II, he was full of honesty and intransigence. His lips seemed to be saying “calm down!” even as his gaze took all the peace away. While, as far as I know, no museum sells anything that displays this character of soul shown in his head. When I saw this image of Philip II, I had to ask what was the price of that bust. The museum guide said: “Not for sale sir.” So I immediately gave up my hopes of ever having one.

Here you have the picture of Philip II in passing, and it is good to frame it in the light of Saint Teresa of Jesus.

I would like to say something about the Invincible Armada because historians present Philip II as a defeated king. Yet any king who simply saved the Teresian Reform from destruction would already be a winning king for all centuries merely because of this one fact. That is worth much more than dominating England. In addition to this, having an Order of truly penitent contemplatives who really pray and are God’s lightning rods to avoid the punishments that fall on earth is worth much more than the Invincible Armada.

Someone sent me the famous poem that expresses the soul of Saint Teresa of Jesus so well, the Sonnet to Christ Crucified. I dare not read it here because Argentines are present and my pronunciation is beyond infamous. Maybe one of the Argentines can read this.

 I am not moved, my God, to love Thee by the Heaven Thou hast promised me; nor am I moved by fear of Hell to cease for that reason to offend Thee. Thou art what moves me, Lord; it moves me to see Thee nailed to a cross and scorned; it moves me to see Thy body so wounded; I am moved by the insults and death that Thou undergoest. I am moved, in sum, by love for Thee, and so greatly, that, even if there were no Heaven, I would love Thee, and even if there were no Hell, I would still fear Thee. Thou dost not have to give me anything to make me love Thee, for even if I did not hope for what I do hope for, I would love Thee just the same.

I think you all understood that these words are a real marvel. I want to emphasize this sonnet’s dynamics. Its spirit could not be more anti-Christian-Democracy and anti-ecumenical. It is a sonnet that begins with refinement by saying something that astonishes and moves one from one amazing thought to the next until the apex of awe. These sacral words leaves those who lack a supernatural spirit stunned and dizzy. This is one of the beauties of the Spanish spirit.

On hearing the first part of the sonnet, “My God, I am not moved to love Thee by hope for the Heaven that Thou hast promised, nor by fear of Hell to stop offending Thee,” a ridiculous bourgeois would say, “But how can that be? I am exactly afraid to offend Thee because of Hell, and I love Thee because of Heaven.” This sonnet starts saying that this is not what moves her. Her bold disinterested love of God is an affront to shy, vulgar, and ordinary souls. Its first sentence starts by defeating them.

She continues: “What moves me, Lord, is to see Thee nailed to a Cross and mocked.” This sonnet is a slap in the face to selfish people. The selfish type would say: “What would move me to love you full of wounds and mocked? I don’t love anything. I love you for my own benefit! Do I have to love you in this state of humiliation?” It is a second affront but also another victory of love and a hymn of worship.

She goes on: “I am moved to see Thy body so wounded, Thy affronts and Thy death.” So it ends up talking about death. He is wounded, hurt, ruined, and dead. “I need no gold, silver, glory or anything. I will say more: I do not even need Heaven, nor is Hell the only determining or main element of my love. It is a collateral element but not the main one. I love mainly what all men are terrified of: Mockery, wounds, blood, and death. That is why I love Thee.

You can see how her spirit flies, how this paradox soars, and how all the audacity of a Christian soul, a true Catholic soul, is expressed there. She continues, “Thy love so moves me, Lord, that even if I there was no Heaven I would love Thee, and even if there was no Hell I would fear Thee.” This is absolutely magnificent! It is a kind of replica and confirmation of the initial paradox. “And it is because of Thy wounds, etc.” What a beautiful audacity!

“I need no gifts to sway my love for Thee, for even if I had no hope, I would love Thee as I do.” That is the final period, the apex. “I want, accept and expect Thy gifts, Thou canst give them to me, but I would love Thee even if Thou did not give them.” This is pure love in its most disinterested, grandest and most chivalrous, supernatural, and admirable manifestation. Here we feel a fervent Catholic soul, so different from today’s watery ecumenical concessions and “love of common sense.”

We only truly love a doctrine when we love all the paradoxes that this doctrine can lend itself to. We love the most excessive and strident formulations of this doctrine. And we love them more than everyone else. That is how we love anything. It is not a love imbued with a kind of idiotic, or even worse, a perfidious deification of “common sense.” (We are not against common sense, however it is not the highest principle that guides a man’s life).

In this sad hour that the Holy Catholic Church is going through, it is well for us to consider that these reflections also apply to Her. The Holy Catholic Church is wounded, She is crucified and will not die only because She is immortal. For at this point, She has every reason to die. Considering the Mystical Body of Christ, which is another Jesus Christ, we can say to the Catholic Church: “I am not moved, O Holy Church, by the Heaven Thou hast promised me, nor does frightful Hell move me to stop offending Thee.” Indeed, we should not refrain from offending the Holy Catholic Church for the sake of Heaven nor for fear of Hell, but out of selfless, disinterested filial love, a love so tender that it contains slivers of adoration for the Holy Catholic Church as an institution.

“Thou movest me, O Holy Catholic Church. Therefore, I am moved to see Thee nailed to a cross and mocked. I am moved to see Thy body so wounded, Thine insults and apparent death. Finally, I am so moved by Thy love (how true this is for us concerning the Catholic Church) that even if there were no Heaven, we would love Thee, and even if there were no Hell, we would fear Thee. Thou needest not give me anything to love Thee, for even if I did not hope for what I do, I would still love Thee just the same.” These are the feelings towards the Holy Church that we must have in these terrible days in which we live.