Discussion of Chapter 13 Chapter Description: - Continues to treat of mortification and - explains how one must renounce the world's standards of wisdom in order to attain to true wisdom. |
In Chapter 13, St. Teresa continues on from Chapter 12 in extolling Humility and Interior Mortification as a defense against attachment, pride and desire for honor and esteem (precedence) She seems to illustrate the expectation of "rights" and rewards as another variant or version of a demand for precedence: ▫▫▫ "I had right on my side"; ▫▫▫ "They had no right to do this to me" She prayed, "God deliver us from such a false idea of right as that!" While, this seems natural to us, in the world, to have an instinctive / automatic expectation of rights, justice and fair treatment in our dealings with others, St. Teresa reminds us not to be attached to recognition, satisfaction, or rewards. She teaches ( as the chapter's introductory description states); "how one must renounce the world's standards of wisdom in order to attain to true wisdom" "The true source of (these demands for honors) is want of humility" "I am referring to ▫▫▫ a want of mortification and ▫▫▫ an attachment to worldly things and to self-interest" ▫▫▫ "that they like to be esteemed and made much of; ▫▫▫ who see the faults of others but never recognize their own" St. Teresa spoke of how Jesus was made to suffer so grievously and without any right or justification for this treatment: "Do you think - that it was right for our good Jesus to have to suffer so many insults... - that they had any right to do Him those wrongs ?" So, we can offer our crosses to Jesus who, Himself, suffered unjust treatment. It is an opportunity to share in the sufferings of Christ. She said that to desire to be in the presence of Christ "yet not to be willing to have any part in His dishonours and trials, is ridiculous" If He was treated so unjustly, Teresa advises, then we can not expect to be treated as we think we deserve. And If we hope to take up our cross and to follow Jesus we should not be selective in the crosses that we are willing to bear: She taught her nuns, but it is true for us all: - that we can not choose our own crosses. - Nor will our crosses be given to us according to what we expect or what we think we deserve. One does not practice humility or detachment when one is "willing to bear only the crosses that she has a perfect right to expect" |
St. Teresa advised: ◊ Prayer Pray to be - led "to detachment" and - guided in the practice of Humility, the Virtues, the Beatitudes. ◊ "Let us...in some small degree, imitate the great humility of the Sacred Virgin" The life of the Blessed Virgin Mary exemplified Interior Mortification and the suffering of trials in patience and humility. ◊"Let (she), who thinks that she is accounted the least among all consider herself the happiest and most fortunate". St. Teresa stressed the importance of checking precedence because it can become - an infectious tendency - a preoccupation that can lead to other weaknesses and serious sins. Attainment of interior mortification takes time but "in externals" can be "practiced immediately". |
End of Discussion of Chapter 13 |
