My friends and I had a Book Report club where, instead of reading the same book, we told the group about books we read.

As part of my Getting Religion Initiative™ I was interested in reading Saint Teresa of Avila’s books, since she is such a huge influence (the first female Doctor of the Church, in fact). I started with her autobiography because the library had it (so it was free!), but as I learned more about her it became apparent I had to at least read her book Interior Castle, although if you really wanna know about Teresa you gotta read ’em all because she refers to the other stuff she has written.

Vida

Her autobiography was simultaneously great and annoying. She seemed so vibrant and charming—it’s clear why people liked her so much. She talked about the “four waters” of prayer, which mirrored her interior castles and I was glad I had read both books because they really do buttress each other.

The four waters, by the way, are the different ways you water your interior garden (experience prayer):

1. Drawing water from a well with a bucket—labor-intensive and time-consuming
2. Using a water wheel—faster, easier, but we are still doing the work
3. Irrigation/aqueduct—little to no work on our part
4. Rain—no effort or intervention is required

The part that was annoying was she also spent a lonnggg time talking about establishing her order and it was very boring. Funnily enough, she does say something to the effect of “I’m sure that was very tedious” after she finally finishes talking about all of it. So then she charmed me again.

You also don’t learn that much about Teresa herself because she focuses so much on prayer (makes sense, I think)—I did have to do some internet searchin’s to learn about Spain at the time, and how she was seen as ~dangerous~in her time.

Interior Castles

This book is about the seven “interior castles” (or mansions) that you pass through on your way to…I guess you could call it the bottom or the center of your soul, where God lives. Honestly, I didn’t understand half this book. I still have on my list a YouTube series where some guy explains it, and that series is like 30 episodes long. So, it’s obviously a dense and rich treasure trove of spiritual direction if you know what you’re reading, which I don’t.

HOWEVER, even my dumb/a-religious ass could appreciate the concept of progression through the “castles”—in particular, the idea that it gets very difficult for a while before you break through. As St. Teresa says herself, the key is perseverance (and humility).

The mansions:

1. Just starting out—getting your prayer life started (entering the mansion).
2. You have a prayer practice but are still attached to earthly things.
3. You pray regularly, do all the things you’re supposed to be doing, but you’re still sort of stuck in your intellectual side. LOTS of people get stuck in the third mansions.
4. You start experiencing consolations (contact with God); in these mansions you have the Prayer of Quiet and the Prayer of Recollection.
5. You experience the Prayer of Union, where you are united with God but it’s temporary.
6. These mansions seem scary: raptures, visions, etc; your friends may turn against you (she is referring to her own experience here where people thought she was faking things for attention)
7. The most interior mansion where you experience true union with God (you can’t be separated—the soul is like a drop of water falling into the ocean that is God).

Mansions 1-3 are like the first water, not sure which specific mansions line up with the second and third waters but those are mansions 4-6, and the 7th mansion lines up with the fourth water. Maybe 6th too. IDK. The point is…everything works out if you persevere.

I really enjoyed this quote about the third mansions—it reminded me of me when I was in my insufferable intermediate dance phase. I knew enough to think I knew something, but I didn’t know enough to know I knew nothing. Luckily I grew out of it.

“Advice is useless; having practiced virtue for so long they think themselves capable of teaching it, and believe they have abundant reason to feel miserable.”

St. Teresa of Avila, “Interior Castle” (p41)

I am 100% certain I am missing a lot in this book because I simply lack the experience and background to understand it, but I still enjoyed it on my own level.

Treasures of the Cross

All of this is to say that I was in Saint Mode and was very excited to hear about The Treasures of the Cross, a traveling exhibit with 150+ Saints’ Relics.

Most of the relics were first class, which (I learned from the lecture) are pieces of the saint. Second class is something they touched and third class is something that touched something they touched. Obvs I went there for St. Teresa but I also laid hands on St. Josephine Bakhita and St. Edith Stein. I was surprised that the reliquaries were just laid out on tables—but I guess you’d have to be ~some kind of person~ to steal one, lol. It was so interesting to read about all these incredible people. And as a non-Catholic it was interesting—in a pleasant way—to be among a group of believers. I wonder if anybody could tell We Don’t Even Go Here. 🙂

If you attended the lecture you got a plenary indulgence but in order to redeem it you had to pray for the Pope (which we did as a group), promise to never to sin again, and go to confession and take communion in the next 20 days. The latter two tasks are difficult for non-Catholics to complete, but as a non-Catholic it’s probably not purgatory I need to worry about.

This was JP’s first big outing and she did great! Bren did have to take her into the hallway at one point because she decided to practice her BA BA BAs in the middle of the lecture but other than that she was pretty chill. 😍