For Teresa, mental prayer was the beginning of the path to new ways of understanding, to the tasting of the deep mysteries of faith, which included the indwelling presence of the Trinity and of Jesus Christ in his humanity and divinity, as well as insights into sin and grace, the Church and the sacraments. Her visions were both spiritual and physical, and she eventually experienced the grace of perfect union with Christ so that she became inseparable from Him ‘as when a little stream enters the sea.’
We need courage for the prayer of agony precisely because we need even more courage for the prayer of ecstasy. How can this be? Because the prayer of ecstasy is often more incredible, more exhausting, and more unbearable in its wonder. Her metaphors for the ecstasy of prayer are once again colorful, dramatic, and flamboyant. This prayer is like being raised up by a mighty eagle and carried aloft on its wings, drowning in an infinite sea of supreme truth or quickly reaching the end of a long journey and finding everything all at once.
Prayer is like being in a garden where the fragrance of the flowers permeates the entire atmosphere or being inebriated with a kind of divine wine. In a uniquely Hispanic image, she says prayer is like watching a bullfight. If we pray, we are like the people in the stands, safe from the bull. If we don’t pray, we are defenselessly down in the arena, confronted by a raging, snorting bull.
Ecstatic prayer is a shining sun and a tremendous Yes! In earthly matters is both ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ but in this prayer there is only ‘yes.’ ‘No’ only comes afterward, when our delight ends and we cannot recover it. In this prayer, we may feel like a tiny bird, tired of flying, in great need of rest. God suddenly comes and picks us up in His own hands, laying us gently in the nest. Using more scriptural expressions, the prayer of ecstasy is like being the thirsty deer who finally gets to the water, the dove who finally finds the olive branch, or the bride who finally receives the bridegroom’s kiss.
All these descriptions are graphic, physical, and earthy. How could we except anything but an earthy approach from a woman who loved perfume and wore bright orange? Teresa knew that prayer is earthy because God, too, is earthy. Everything on earth, then, becomes the stuff of our prayer. Real prayer erupts everywhere and any time. We must not become prayer-conscious but God-conscious, and bring all of life into our prayer. We must be earthy mystics not only mystical – too misty. This creates a more dynamic and balanced spirituality.
Teresian prayer includes all five senses. When Teresa prayed, she sometimes felt a powerful fragrance spreading through all her senses, as though a sweet ointment were poured into the marrow of her bones. Sometimes it felt as if a flaming brazier in her inner-most depths was exuding a sweet-smelling perfume. Our prayer will not be the same as Teresa’s. But to grow in a healthy life of prayer under Teresa’s earthy influence, we must come to our senses! We must live sensuously: see as much as we can see, touch as much as we can touch, and taste as much as we can taste.
The sense of sight may be the most important in prayer, as it is in the whole of life. Teresa explains how prayer is looking at Him who is looking at us. When we heighten our awareness, we understand that God never takes His loving eyes off us. What is wrong with us that we do not keep our eyes on Him?
How often I have read lives of saints and mystics and wanted to ask: ‘but exactly what did you do in your prayer?’ Teresa tells us. Her answer is similar to St Francis, who said: ‘I look at Him, and He looks at me.’ The important is not to think much but to love much. Though thinking and reasoning play a crucial role at certain stages, when we move into the more contemplative aspects of prayer, excessive rationality spoils and even precludes prayer. Teresa’s entire teaching on mystical prayer can be summed up in one simple phrase: ‘Just look at Him.’ Look at Him made palpably present in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Look at Him continuing His presence in the tabernacle. Christ is as tangibly present to us today, in the Blessed Sacrament, as He was when He walked on earth. We are tempted to say, ‘Oh, if only I could have looked on Him then, it would be easy for me.’ But if we do not sense His sacramental presence now, what makes us think we would have responded to His physical presence then?
Teresa usually writes clearly and lucidly. But when she describes prayer as holy madness, she becomes endearingly ‘cuckoo’ as she exclaims, ‘I don’t know any other terms for describing it besides madness, foolishness, and this delightful disquiet. The soul doesn’t know what to do. Wanting all of us to enjoy this blessed madness,’ she continues, ‘May we all be sick with this kind of sickness. May we all be mad for love of Him who for love of us was called mad!’ We may well say, ‘This is madness,’ thinking that wild Teresian prayer is fine for some, but not for us. After all, we are sensible – we have jobs, families, important ministries, global, economical, financial, religious concerns. But we must be more honest with ourselves. To what extent do we use our noble responsibilities to evade our primary responsibility to be men and women of God, of prayer? Teresa is a great model precisely because she was so busy. She is not only one of the greatest contemplatives in the western spiritual tradition, but also one of its greatest activists. Tremendously involved with people and projects, constantly on the go, She still found time to make prayer a priority.
Prayer is a spontaneous human act as natural as breathing – a necessity. It is not a matter of taste, choice, socio-economic class, education, or religious tradition. Prayer is to the human heart what breath is to the body. As Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said, ‘If we don’t breathe, we die. If we don’t pray, we die spiritually.’ Christian prayer is a vast realm of experience that ranges from the verbal recitation of ready-made prayers to the affective dimensions of spousal prayer and the highest stages of contemplation without words, thoughts, or props of any kind.
Teresa describes it as an ‘intimate sharing between friends.’ If prayer is friendship with God, then the same lessons which apply to friendship between human persons also apply here. Good friendship means taking the time, making the time to be alone with the one we love who also loves us. Prayer is not an exercise but an encounter, not a practice but a presence, not a technique, but meeting the Beloved. We need to ask the ‘how to’ questions. But they cannot be answered with mechanics. Prayer is more readily caught than taught. We cannot control it, but we can create the climate for it.
The key to authentic prayer is openness. We must let go of any expectation and cultivate a spirit of expectancy. We must remain empty, like the Virgin Mary’s womb, and wait to be impregnated however God sees fit. ‘Fiat, be it done unto me,’ we pray with the lady. As we learn from Teresa, prayer is not always tranquil but sometimes tumultuous. Serenity is an important aspect of some prayer, but not all. Sometimes prayer is full of worry, sorrow, and existential anxiety; sometimes full of laughter and joy. We may be still or restlessly pace the floor, arguing with God like Job or struggling with him like Jacob, as a result of our love-wounds and painful concern for the world.
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