Quote of the day, 15 November: St. Teresa of Avila
Now that I have begun to speak of some visions of the dead, I want to mention certain happenings in which the Lord, in this regard, was pleased that I see some souls. I shall mention only a few so as to be brief and because knowing about them isn’t necessary; I mean for anyone’s benefit.
I was told that someone who had been our provincial was dead (although when he died, he was in another province). I had had some dealings with him and was indebted to him for some good deeds. He was a person of many virtues. As soon as I learned he was dead, I felt much disturbance because I feared for his salvation, in that he had been a superior for twenty years.
Being a superior is something I am indeed very afraid of, since I think having souls in one’s charge involves a lot of danger; with much anxiety, I went to an oratory. I offered up for him all the good I had done in my life, which must in fact amount to little, and so I asked the Lord to supply from His own merits what was necessary for that soul to be freed from purgatory.
While beseeching the Lord for this as best I could, it seemed to me that person came out from the depths of the earth at my right side and that I saw him ascend to heaven with the greatest happiness. He had been well advanced in years, but I saw him as only about thirty, or even less I think, and his countenance was resplendent.
This vision passed very quickly, but I was so extremely consoled that his death could never cause me any more sorrow, although I saw persons who were filled with grief over his loss since he had been generally highly esteemed.
The consolation my soul experienced was so great, I couldn’t worry about him, nor could I doubt that it was a vision; I mean that it was not an illusion. No more than fifteen days had passed since his death. However, I didn’t neglect to get others to pray for him and to pray myself, except that I couldn’t do so with the eagerness I would have if I hadn’t seen this vision.
When the Lord shows some persons to me in this way and afterward I desire to pray for them to His Majesty, it seems to me, without my being able to help it, that doing so is like giving alms to the rich. Afterward, I learned—for he died quite far from here—of the death the Lord had given him; it was so greatly edifying, because of the knowledge, tears, and humility with which he died, that it left everyone amazed.
One of the nuns in the house who had been a great servant of God had been dead a little more than a day and a half. A nun was reciting a reading in the choir from the Office of the Dead, which was being said for the departed soul, and I was standing so as to recite the verse with her.
When she was half through the reading, I saw the nun who had died; it seemed to me her soul had come out at my right side just as in the previous case and was going to heaven. This was not an imaginative vision as was the former one, but like the others I mentioned, yet this kind is as certain as the imaginative visions.
Eighteen or twenty years ago, another nun died in the house I was in. She had always been sick and been a very good servant of God, devoted to her choir duties and most virtuous. I thought certainly she would not enter purgatory, because the illnesses she had suffered were many, and that she would have a surplus of merits. Four hours after her death, while reciting the hours of the Office before her burial, I understood she departed from purgatory and went to heaven.
While at a college of the Society of Jesus, experiencing the great trials in soul and body, I said I sometimes go through, I was in such a state that I think I wasn’t even able to receive a good thought. That night, a Brother from the Society died in that house, and while I was praying for him as I could and hearing Mass said for him by another Father of the Society, a deep recollection came over me; I saw him ascend to heaven in great glory, and the Lord along with him. By special favor, I understood that it was His Majesty going with him.
Another friar of our order, a truly very good friar, was seriously ill; while I was at Mass, I became recollected and saw that he was dead and that he ascended to heaven without entering purgatory. He died at the hour I saw him, according to what I learned later. I was amazed he hadn’t entered purgatory.
I understood that since he was a friar who had observed his vows well, the bulls of the order about not entering purgatory were beneficial to him. I don’t know why I came to understand this. It seems to me it must have been because being a friar doesn’t consist in the habit—I mean in wearing it—but in enjoying the state of higher perfection, which is what it means to be a friar
Saint Teresa of Avila
The Book of Her Life, ch. 38, nos. 26–31
Teresa of Avila, St 1985, The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.
Featured image: Fresco on the ceiling of the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Marostica, Italy. Image credit: isaac74 / Adobe Stock (Asset ID#: 139375631).
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