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Erin Foord, ocds: St. Teresa’s Bookmark, Novena Day 9

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St. Teresa of Jesus Novena

O most loving Heavenly Father! We thank you for the great gift you gave us through your beloved St. Teresa of Avila, virgin and doctor of the Church. Her life was a great example of prayer, sacrifice and faith in You. We humbly pray for her most holy intercession… (Mention your intentions)

St. Teresa, we know that you are a powerful intercessor because of your close relationship to the Holy Mother and Jesus through prayer. Open wide the doors to the interior castle of our hearts and souls so that we may know how to pray! Pray for us, that we may have the gift of prayer. St. Teresa of Avila, you are an example of prayerful holiness that we will try to follow. You are in heaven praising God. With your seat of honor, please beg God to bring me to eternal rest with you.

Our Father… Hail Mary… Glory be…

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us! Amen

This world is not our home. Saint Peter explained, “We are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13). Saint John the Evangelist describes his vision of this new world, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them [as their God]. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, [for] the old order has passed away.” (Rev:21:1-4)

How do we become part of this new creation? Saint Paul insists, “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” (Rom.12:2) The transformation that occurs through the renewal of our mind begins with awareness. This awareness starts with simply discerning a thought. Is the thought, “good and pleasing and perfect?” If not, Saint Paul

commands us to, “…take every thought captive in obedience to Christ.”

(2Cor.10:5)

Most of us don’t even remember what we say, much less the thoughts that run through our minds to occasion it. How could such fleeting impressions be of any importance? Yet, every thought and absolutely every vocalization of a thought into a shared expression has enormous power. Have you ever contemplated the power of a single thought and how everything in our existence is the result of thought? Nothing can come into being that has not first been thought. That makes our thoughts the building blocks of how we create and interpret existence. Beliefs are a collection of individual thoughts, as the bases of our choices, decisions, and judgments and these form the materialization of our consciousness into actions. Repeated ways of acting become behaviors and this whole process is the stream of consciousness that comprises the substance of our lives and defines our character. In other words, be aware of your thoughts, they become your words. Be aware of your words, they become your actions. Be aware of your actions, they become your behaviors. Be aware of your behaviors, they become your character. And be aware of your character, because it becomes your destiny!

The Transverberation of Saint Teresa (Sevilla) Photo credit: thespeakroom.org

Our actions also have a communal dimension as they contribute to the body of Christ or the social order defining the moral fabric and nature of the systems, structures and groups which we form and live in. Actions impact the world around us (helping or harming–ourselves, our neighbors, and our environment) for good or ill. Our lives are continuing encounters with this external world and our character is the person we become in and through such encounters. We grow by facing crises and challenges, and by responding to fresh opportunities in each moment. Developing the ability to risk, to change, to face new challenges, to be open to new ways of thinking, and to suffer the loss of old habits requires courage, prudence, love, faith, hope and a commitment to higher intentions and goals. Such virtues help us to grow, to unfold, and to realize a greater degree of our potential as flourishing human persons. This power to unfold is more than just a choice, it is a sustained commitment to expand, freely and intentionally, beyond present boundaries and limits. The renewal of our mind, requires elevating our perception from a worldly view to a spiritual understanding. When one of life’s situations goes awry, like the current suffering associated with COVID-19, we have an opportunity to demonstrate our faith, in an all-powerful, all-knowing and all- loving God and our hope in his will for our future as we embrace what seems unacceptable with love, peace, and joy.

About the author: Erin Foord has been a Secular Discalced Carmelite for 40 years.  He served as President of the California-Arizona Provincial Council from 2014-2017. He gave this conference as part of an Ongoing Formation class for the Santa Clara , CA OCDS community.

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Erin Foord, ocds: St. Teresa’s Bookmark Novena Day 8

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St. Teresa of Jesus Novena

O most loving Heavenly Father! We thank you for the great gift you gave us through your beloved St. Teresa of Avila, virgin and doctor of the Church. Her life was a great example of prayer, sacrifice and faith in You. We humbly pray for her most holy intercession… (Mention your intentions)

St. Teresa, we know that you are a powerful intercessor because of your close relationship to the Holy Mother and Jesus through prayer. Open wide the doors to the interior castle of our hearts and souls so that we may know how to pray! Pray for us, that we may have the gift of prayer. St. Teresa of Avila, you are an example of prayerful holiness that we will try to follow. You are in heaven praising God. With your seat of honor, please beg God to bring me to eternal rest with you.

Our Father… Hail Mary… Glory be…

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us! Amen

All things are passing away:

What is Saint Teresa teaching us through this third line of her bookmark? Is it merely a warning? Do not allow the love of the world into our heart, it will be disturbing and frightening, and in the end will abandon us because, all things are passing away?

It can be emotionally upsetting and worrisome when we have invested our faith, hope, and love in things temporary and constantly changing. The things of this world pass in and out of our lives; successes and failures, health and sickness, life and death, problems and joys. Saint Teresa understood this well. She was no stranger to life’s pain and heartache. She lost her mother at twelve. (cf. Life, I, 7) She struggled with weakness and poor health her whole life. Three years after entering Carmel she fell seriously ill and remained in a coma for four days appearing as if she were dead (cf. Life, 5, 9). Five years later, she was alone in the world, her father died and her siblings immigrated to America. Yet through it all she was able to proclaim, “Our greatest gain is to lose the wealth that is of such brief duration and, by comparison with eternal things, of such little worth!”

This is not to conclude that it was easy for her. Saint Teresa was not immune to enjoying the world’s distractions. In her adolescence she developed an affection for her cousins and reading romance novels. Later in her religious life she lamented of her relationship with Jesus, that “…he had brought me back to himself so many times, and I as often had left him” (Life, 7, 8). But, her experience was not without merit, as she goes on to assert, “To reach something good it is very useful to have gone astray, and thus acquire experience.” From her experience she realized that, “Our body has this defect that, the more it is provided care and comforts, the more needs and desires it finds.”

She taught that we are free to enjoy the created things of this life while they last, but should use them to turn our minds and hearts to God. She explains, “Reflect upon the providence and wisdom of God in all created things and praise Him in them all.” She warns not to cling to things with our will and our heart and counsels that we must be prepared to let them go when it is time, “have courage for whatever comes in life — everything lies in that.” In fact, those special moments become all the more precious when we come to understand that they are not meant to last. It may even provide some measure of comfort that whatever hardships and pains we experience, they also will pass, as Saint Teresa reasoned, “Pain is never permanent”. She embraced suffering with this understanding, “Suffering is a great favor. Remember that everything soon comes to an end . . . and take courage. Think of how our gain is eternal.”

For Saint Teresa, the primary understanding of the line, “All things are passing away”, was never bleak and depressing. It was never about the end! Rather, interpreted in faith it is a message of hope. Scripture confirms, “…the world and its enticement are passing away. But whoever does the will of God remains forever.” (1Jn. 2:17) Saint Teresa is echoing the words of Saint Paul as he explains, that only “the world in its present form is passing away.” (1Cor.7:31) Its passing makes room for a new creation. He continues, “Whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.” (2Cor.5:17) This is the message Saint Teresa intends to convey. This life as an ongoing journey of change and choice, a surrendering of the old and a trusting in new beginnings. Let nothing disturb or frighten you, the “old” world is passing away… but the good news of Jesus Christ is, “Behold, I make all things new.” (Rev.21:5)

About the author: Erin Foord has been a Secular Discalced Carmelite for 40 years.  He served as President of the California-Arizona Provincial Council from 2014-2017. He gave this conference as part of an Ongoing Formation class for the Santa Clara , CA OCDS community.

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Erin Foord, ocds: St. Teresa’s Bookmark Novena Day 7

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St. Teresa of Jesus Novena

O most loving Heavenly Father! We thank you for the great gift you gave us through your beloved St. Teresa of Avila, virgin and doctor of the Church. Her life was a great example of prayer, sacrifice and faith in You. We humbly pray for her most holy intercession… (Mention your intentions)

St. Teresa, we know that you are a powerful intercessor because of your close relationship to the Holy Mother and Jesus through prayer. Open wide the doors to the interior castle of our hearts and souls so that we may know how to pray! Pray for us, that we may have the gift of prayer. St. Teresa of Avila, you are an example of prayerful holiness that we will try to follow. You are in heaven praising God. With your seat of honor, please beg God to bring me to eternal rest with you.

Our Father… Hail Mary… Glory be…

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us! Amen

With closer examination, we find that clinging to our disordered attachments actually resist God, and refuse His will for us. His will is represented by the present moment and what actually “IS”. This can be difficult to understand, but the only reality that exists, is the present moment.

God is only in the present moment and the only way we can embrace union with God is in and through the present moment. The concepts of past and future only exist in our heads as mental constructs. The illusion of a past based on memory and an imagined future have no reality of their own. Nothing ever happened in the past, it happens in the present. Nothing will ever happen in the future, it happens in the present.

We cannot affect change in the past—its gone. Nor in the future, it hasn’t happened yet. In actual fact, there is never a time when our life is not “this moment” and the only place where true action can occur is right now. This ever flowing, now, is always our only opportunity for interaction and communion with God!

by Francois Gerard (1770-1837)

So by its very nature, an attachment which is a clinging or preoccupation with some past event, is a serious detriment to our spiritual life. This is why the healing and purification of our memory is so important. The memory is the reason for our unwillingness to honor and acknowledge and embrace the present reality.

This resistance is always characterized by some form of negative judgment or complaint. To complain is always non-acceptance of what “IS” and signals an underlying disordered attachment. Don’t complain, either accept a situation or acknowledge that it exists and change it.

In serious cases the soul becomes trapped in its compulsion to deny the present reality and to live through memory and anticipation. This separation from our Divine Source will be experienced as guilt, regret, shame, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of unforgiveness.

These experiences are the fruit of clinging to a disordered past expectation that was unsuccessful, replaying it over and over in our head where we ignore the present reality – God, who essentially becomes an enemy that must be resisted or denied.

“No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” (Mat.6:24)

About the author: Erin Foord has been a Secular Discalced Carmelite for 40 years.  He served as President of the California-Arizona Provincial Council from 2014-2017. He gave this conference as part of an Ongoing Formation class for the Santa Clara , CA OCDS community.

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Erin Foord, ocds: St. Teresa’s Bookmark – Novena Day 6

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St. Teresa of Jesus Novena

O most loving Heavenly Father! We thank you for the great gift you gave us through your beloved St. Teresa of Avila, virgin and doctor of the Church. Her life was a great example of prayer, sacrifice and faith in You. We humbly pray for her most holy intercession… (Mention your intentions)

St. Teresa, we know that you are a powerful intercessor because of your close relationship to the Holy Mother and Jesus through prayer. Open wide the doors to the interior castle of our hearts and souls so that we may know how to pray! Pray for us, that we may have the gift of prayer. St. Teresa of Avila, you are an example of prayerful holiness that we will try to follow. You are in heaven praising God. With your seat of honor, please beg God to bring me to eternal rest with you.

Our Father… Hail Mary… Glory be…

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us! Amen

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Prv.3:5)

This is one of Scripture’s most frequent imperatives.

This is the Good News! How many times and in how many different ways does it need to be expressed before we embrace it with our whole heart, trusting with complete confidence that, “…all things work for good for those who love God”. (Rom.8:28) When we believe it sincerely, there is nothing to fear.

Each of us face many scary situations in our life, but are any of them legitimate for worry? Saint Matthew describes the Apostles on the brink of death. They cry out in terror, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” (Matt. 8:25) Jesus had been asleep as the boat became overwhelmed by the wind and waves. He does not chide the Apostles for being silent and waiting so long to act, Rather, He admonishes their fear calling out their lack of virtue. “Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?” (Matt. 8:26) I repeat the above scripture for emphasis, “Lean not on your own understanding!” For as God declared through the prophet, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

Painting by Father Robert Elias Barcelos, OCD, 2014

With our faith, hope, and love securely grounded in Jesus Christ, “the way and the truth and the life” (Jn.14:6), we will never be threatened by loss, because we possess the true wealth. We will not be disturbed or fearful because nothing can separate us from what we truly treasure, God Himself. As our Saint Paul confirms, “What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.” (Rom.8:35,37)

So “Let nothing frighten you”. Fear is a poison that stunts and cripples our spiritual growth. Saint Teresa is encouraging us to grow in the virtues of faith, hope, and love for God. Prayer is the antidote as our Provincial Statues recommend, “strive to make prayer penetrate our entire existence, in order to walk in the presence of the living God, through the constant exercise of faith, hope and love….” Most “problems” cannot survive in the reality of God. When one of life’s situations goes awry we have an opportunity to recognize God’s presence in the simple details of everyday life, for He is everywhere, manifest at every moment for those who desire him. He is ever whispering to our heart, “Do not fear nor be dismayed, for the LORD, your God, is with you wherever you go.” (Jos 1:9) Elizabeth Barrett Browning expressed this reality in a most beautiful way in her poem Aurora Leigh.

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

― Elizabeth Barrett Browning

About the author: Erin Foord has been a Secular Discalced Carmelite for 40 years.  He served as President of the California-Arizona Provincial Council from 2014-2017. He gave this conference as part of an Ongoing Formation class for the Santa Clara , CA OCDS community.

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Erin Foord, ocds: St. Teresa’s Bookmark- Novena Day 5

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St. Teresa of Jesus Novena

O most loving Heavenly Father! We thank you for the great gift you gave us through your beloved St. Teresa of Avila, virgin and doctor of the Church. Her life was a great example of prayer, sacrifice and faith in You. We humbly pray for her most holy intercession… (Mention your intentions)

St. Teresa, we know that you are a powerful intercessor because of your close relationship to the Holy Mother and Jesus through prayer. Open wide the doors to the interior castle of our hearts and souls so that we may know how to pray! Pray for us, that we may have the gift of prayer. St. Teresa of Avila, you are an example of prayerful holiness that we will try to follow. You are in heaven praising God. With your seat of honor, please beg God to bring me to eternal rest with you.

Our Father… Hail Mary… Glory be…

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us! Amen

Let nothing frighten you:

When people and situations frighten us, it indicates a deficiency and misdirection of our faith, hope and love. Rather than being committed entirely to God, they are invested in earthly things. When threatened we feel vulnerable and insecure and again there is a shift in our heart’s desire from Thy will be done to my will be done. As we examine what frightens us we recognize that the threat is based upon a perceived separation or loss from people or things that we inordinately made the objects of our faith, hope, and love, rather than God.

In this way, just as being disturbed over unfulfilled attachments, being aware of our fears can help identify to what degree we are children of God or children of the world. God is Spirit. His children are made in His image and will resemble His nature of Love. Do we recognize our self as Spirit and know, “it is not by bread alone that we live, but by all that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD?” (Deut. 8:3) Or, do our fears betray hearts longing for what the world has to offer, “…sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life?” (1Jn.2:17)

Anybody can believe in God, even demons believe He exists. It is trusting in God that takes faith. Our faith is based on the understanding that the Creator of the universe, possesses a power beyond our imagining, as well as an intelligence that we cannot begin to comprehend or fathom, and a love that surpasses all knowledge (cf. Eph.3:17). When an attachment overpowers our virtues causing them to waver, we succumb to fear. In this way fear is very

much a temptation. It arises from doubts in our heart that oppose the corresponding virtues. We are tempted against faith that God exists, or against hope that He is powerful enough to grant our desires, or wise enough to know what is actually best for us, or tempted against charity that He loves us as His dear children.

God is all powerful, all knowing, and all good and loving. The Archangel Gabriel assures us in his words to Mary, “Nothing is impossible for God.” (cf. Lk.1:37) Our faith based on this understanding establishes trust and our trust gives way to surrender, “Thy will be done.” (Mt.6:10) It is essential that we recognize and have full confidence in God’s will as our greatest good. This is what Jesus taught and what we ask every time we pray the “Our Father”, “Thy will be done.” We must also realize the importance of the “present moment” as the expression of God’s will for us (permissive if not perfect). It is in this context that Saint Teresa proclaimed, “To have courage for whatever comes in life — everything lies in that.” We should always interpret life according to our faith. When we suffer loss we should proclaim the words of our holy mother, “Our greatest gain is to lose the wealth that is of such brief duration and, by comparison with eternal things, of such little worth.” She is well acquainted with human nature and quickly adds the lament, “yet we get upset about it and our gain turns to loss.”

Over and over in the scripture God entreats us not to fear. The phrases “do not be afraid” and “do not fear” appear over 110 times. Much of what we fear are mere shadows, figments of our imagination that will never be realized. They are self-created speculations stemming from some form of non- acceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what already “IS”. When we include our all powerful, all wise, and all loving God in our imagined future there should be no reason for fear. There are only situations that need to be dealt with or accepted. As the famous serenity prayer suggests, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

It is vital that we always embrace the present and future situation with absolute faith and hope in God’s love for us. We need to be vigilant that fear is a temptation against faith as Jesus’ explains, “…do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’” (Matt. 6:30) Jesus’ instruction extends even to legitimate needs for bodily sustenance and clothing. He continues, “…your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well. (Matt. 6:30-33) Do we believe this?

About the author: Erin Foord has been a Secular Discalced Carmelite for 40 years.  He served as President of the California-Arizona Provincial Council from 2014-2017. He gave this conference as part of the Ongoing Formation class for the Santa Clara , CA OCDS community.

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Erin Foord, ocds: St. Teresa’s bookmark – Novena Day 4

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St. Teresa of Jesus Novena

O most loving Heavenly Father! We thank you for the great gift you gave us through your beloved St. Teresa of Avila, virgin and doctor of the Church. Her life was a great example of prayer, sacrifice and faith in You. We humbly pray for her most holy intercession… (Mention your intentions)

St. Teresa, we know that you are a powerful intercessor because of your close relationship to the Holy Mother and Jesus through prayer. Open wide the doors to the interior castle of our hearts and souls so that we may know how to pray! Pray for us, that we may have the gift of prayer. St. Teresa of Avila, you are an example of prayerful holiness that we will try to follow. You are in heaven praising God. With your seat of honor, please beg God to bring me to eternal rest with you.

Our Father… Hail Mary… Glory be…

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us! Amen

What can we do? We must start by identifying the disordered attachments in our life, and address them through a practical plan of detaching or releasing ourselves from them. If we don’t break the attachment, we will find ourselves endlessly repeating the same situations over and over again. This kind of compulsive, addictive, behavior actually feeds a false, or phantom self which is the ego. Egoism and pride are deeply embedded in the human spirit.

We can be so unconsciously identified with our ego that we don’t even recognize it. This is why Jesus emphatically demands that, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Lk. 9:23) Saint Paul affirms that, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires.” (Gal. 5:24) Once purified, we are able to experience a greater freedom and to be open to the gifts that God wishes to lavish on us. As Jesus promised, “Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God.” (Mt.5:8)

Once purified, we are able to experience a greater freedom and to be open to the gifts that God wishes to lavish on us. As Jesus promised, “Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God.” (Mt.5:8)

This first instruction of Saint Teresa’s bookmark, “Let nothing disturb you” is advocating emotional detachment and a loving indifference, where we joyously surrender to whatever happens in our lives with equanimity and an absolute trust in God and His will for us. This is expressed by St. John of the Cross in his poem, Glosa a lo Divino:

“From creatures now my soul is free,

Detached from all created things;

Now she at last has taken wings And lives her life delectably.

To God, and God alone, she clings.”

About the author: Erin Foord has been a Secular Discalced Carmelite for 40 years.  He served as President of the California-Arizona Provincial Council from 2014-2017. He gave this conference as part of an Ongoing Formation class for the Santa Clara , CA OCDS community.

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Erin Foord, ocds: St. Teresa’s bookmark: Novena Day 3

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Bernini’s The Transverberation of Saint Teresa

St. Teresa of Avila Novena

O most loving Heavenly Father! We thank you for the great gift you gave us through your beloved St. Teresa of Avila, virgin and doctor of the Church. Her life was a great example of prayer, sacrifice and faith in You. We humbly pray for her most holy intercession… (Mention your intentions)

St. Teresa, we know that you are a powerful intercessor because of your close relationship to the Holy Mother and Jesus through prayer. Open wide the doors to the interior castle of our hearts and souls so that we may know how to pray! Pray for us, that we may have the gift of prayer. St. Teresa of Avila, you are an example of prayerful holiness that we will try to follow. You are in heaven praising God. With your seat of honor, please beg God to bring me to eternal rest with you.

Our Father… Hail Mary… Glory be…

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us! Amen

About the author: Erin Foord has been a Secular Discalced Carmelite for 40 years.  He served as President of the California-Arizona Provincial Council from 2014-2017. He gave this conference as part of an Ongoing Formation class for the Santa Clara , CA OCDS community.

A disordered attachment can often be difficult to recognize or admit in ourselves. They can be seductive and masquerade as “needs” essential to life. But there are definite fruits where we can distinguish disordered attachments from ordinary and proper desires referred to above.

The identifying characteristic of a disordered attachment is that it triggers an adverse emotional response when our desired expectations are threatened or denied. At such point we have become subjugated to creation rather than our Creator for our life, happiness, and joy. The triggering of our negative emotions is a warning sign that we are overly attached to someone or something.

Also, that which we emotionally avoid and resist is just as much an attachment as is something we crave and desire. The attachment is to the fulfillment of our disordered expectations. Since it is backed by the full rush of our emotions, each attachment has the potential to put us in a state of emotional warfare with our self, others, and God.

When our disordered cravings and desires are threatened or unrealized, as will always be the case to one degree or another, it can engender a host of negative emotions that preoccupy, distract, and do us harm. Obviously, we attract fear, worry, and distress into our life when our disordered expectations are threatened. As this continues over time, fear can intensify to anxiety and paranoia.

When progress towards the fulfillment of our expectations is consistently less than desired we experience frustration, boredom, cynicism, and despair. These harmful emotions dominate our consciousness and keep us from perceiving clearly.

We become quick to blame others and adept at rationalizing the real or imagined impairments to our expectations. We lash out with feelings of suspicion, anger, resentment, and jealousy. In reality we bring this on ourselves when we first attempt to control and manipulate people and situations in our lives to comply with our disordered expectations.

A large part of this problem is the way we were taught to approach life reinforces the feelings and situations that result in failure and unhappiness. We are taught from an early age to seek external power through exploration and study of the physical world. We undergo years of education where we learn to satisfy our wants and desires through manipulation and control of what we discovered.

This way of achieving happiness can’t possibly work, because contrary to popular opinion, happiness is not obtained through the accumulation, manipulation, and control of people and situations.

 

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Erin Foord, ocds: St. Teresa’s Bookmark – Novena Day 2

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st. teresa of avila

St. Teresa of Avila Novena

O most loving Heavenly Father! We thank you for the great gift you gave us through your beloved St. Teresa of Avila, virgin and doctor of the Church. Her life was a great example of prayer, sacrifice and faith in You. We humbly pray for her most holy intercession… (Mention your intentions)

St. Teresa, we know that you are a powerful intercessor because of your close relationship to the Holy Mother and Jesus through prayer. Open wide the doors to the interior castle of our hearts and souls so that we may know how to pray! Pray for us, that we may have the gift of prayer. St. Teresa of Avila, you are an example of prayerful holiness that we will try to follow. You are in heaven praising God. With your seat of honor, please beg God to bring me to eternal rest with you.

Our Father… Hail Mary… Glory be…

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us! Amen

About the author: Erin Foord has been a Secular Discalced Carmelite for 40 years.  He served as President of the California-Arizona Provincial Council from 2014-2017. He gave this conference as part of an Ongoing Formation class for the Santa Clara , CA OCDS community.

As an illustration of our minds being occupied with earthly things, the following is an excerpt from CS Lewis’s book, The Screwtape Letters, which is a novel where a senior demon (Screwtape) is writing to a junior demon (Wormwood) on how to best distract Christians from hearing and focusing on the promptings of God. Screwtape writes to Wormwood, “So engrained is their appetite for Heaven that our best method, at this stage, of attaching them to earth is to make them believe that earth can be turned into Heaven at some future date by politics. He writes,

“My Dear Wormwood,

Be sure that the patient remains completely fixated on politics. Arguments, political gossip, and obsessing on the faults of people they have never met serves as an excellent distraction from advancing in personal virtue, character, and the things the patient can control. Make sure to keep the patient in a constant state of angst, frustration, and general disdain towards the rest of the human race in order to avoid any kind of charity or inner peace from further developing. Ensure the patient continues to believe that the problem is “out there” in the “broken system” rather than recognizing there is a problem with himself.

Keep up the good work, – Uncle Screwtape”

I hope that none of you identify with those lines. I confess that I do and it is something I need to be vigilant about making a concerted effort to be consciously detached from.

When our disordered cravings and desires are threatened or unrealized, as will always be the case to one degree or another, it can engender a host of negative emotions that preoccupy, distract, and do us harm. When our disordered expectations are threatened, our attachments invite fear, worry, and distress into our life. As this continues over time, fear can intensify to anxiety and paranoia. When progress towards the fulfillment of our expectations is consistently less than desired we experience frustration, boredom, cynicism, and despair. These harmful emotions dominate our consciousness and keep us from perceiving clearly. We become quick to blame others for our frustrations and adept at rationalizing the real or imagined impairments to our misguided hopes. We lash out with feelings of suspicion, anger, and resentment. We bring this on ourselves when we attempt to control and manipulate other people and situations to comply with our disordered desires.

What are some of the attachments that disturb you? What are the situations that hinder you from being loving and respectful to others? Are you attached to personal ideas, to political views, to personal concepts about God, and how to serve Him? Are you attached to being “right” and find pleasure in pointing out how others are “wrong”? Do you get upset when things don’t go your way, revealing a desire for external power and control over people and situations?

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Erin Foord, ocds: St. Teresa’s Bookmark: Novena Day 1

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St. Teresa of Jesus Novena

O most loving Heavenly Father! We thank you for the great gift you gave us through your beloved St. Teresa of Avila, virgin and doctor of the Church. Her life was a great example of prayer, sacrifice and faith in You. We humbly pray for her most holy intercession… (Mention your intentions)

St. Teresa, we know that you are a powerful intercessor because of your close relationship to the Holy Mother and Jesus through prayer. Open wide the doors to the interior castle of our hearts and souls so that we may know how to pray! Pray for us, that we may have the gift of prayer. St. Teresa of Avila, you are an example of prayerful holiness that we will try to follow. You are in heaven praising God. With your seat of honor, please beg God to bring me to eternal rest with you.

Our Father… Hail Mary… Glory be…

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us! Amen

About the author: Erin Foord has been a Secular Discalced Carmelite for 40 years.  He served as President of the California-Arizona Provincial Council from 2014-2017. He gave this conference as part of an Ongoing Formation class for the Santa Clara , CA OCDS community.

St. Teresa of Avila, Our Holy Mother, a mystic, and Doctor of the Church, wrote this poem in the 16th century. It’s called St. Teresa’s Bookmark because, according to tradition this great Saint carried it around in her prayer book, where it was found after her death.

Nada te turbe, Nada te espante, Todo se pasa, Dios no se muda. La paciencia todo lo alcanza: Quien a Dios tiene nada le falta; Solo Dios basta.

Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, All things are passing away:God never changes. Patience obtains all things, Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices.

— St. Teresa of Avila

Sometimes you may find this bookmark referred to as a prayer. Why is it not a prayer? Do you see how this simple wisdom represents the foundation of Carmelite prayer and spirituality? It provides an essential outline for living a spiritual life? As mentioned, it was placed in Saint Teresa’s breviary where several times a day it was a reminder for her reflection on Jesus Christ and living His joy, free from anger, resentment, fear and worry, and the needless suffering that results? Let’s look more closely at each line.

Let nothing disturb you.

When we are disturbed it is caused by clinging to disordered cravings and desires. For Carmelite seculars, our lives are characterized by living for God in the world. It is a balancing act; giving to God what belongs to God and to Caesar, the demands that the world requires. Most of us need some form of employment, to pay rent or mortgage, and to provide for the needs of our families. Living in the world we are constantly facing the temptation of how much is enough? At what point do our desires for …money, security, relaxation, pleasure, status, power, prestige, etc., become less about serving God and neighbor, and more about serving ourselves and our egos? Saint Teresa’s bookmark suggests it may be when we become emotionally invested in the outcome. Where the balance begins to shift from Thy will be done to my will be done. In the language of Saint John of the Cross, when we start to have these emotionally backed demands, we are forming inordinate attachments.

Saint John observes that anyone serious about loving God, must not “voluntarily” entertain self-centered pursuits of finite things sought for themselves. In other words, devoid of an honest association with God, our sole end and purpose. Saint Paul makes the same point to the Corinthians that, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.” (1 Cor 10:31) The issue for Saint John is not whether we use and enjoy created goods, but rather our desire for them and our attachment to them that does harm to our spiritual life. He explains, “…it is not the things of this world that either occupy the soul or cause it harm, since they enter it not, but rather the will and desire for them.” (Assent: Book 1,Chap. 3)

He clarifies that he is speaking of voluntary desires and not natural ones‚ for the latter are little or no hindrance to advanced prayer, as long as the will does not intervene with a selfish clinging. By natural desires the Saint has in mind, for example, a desire for water when thirsty, for food or the means to purchase food when hungry, for a habitable shelter, meaningful work, and for rest when fatigued. There is no necessary disorder in these attachments. To eradicate these natural inclinations, and to mortify them entirely is impossible in this life.

Of course, even natural desires can become unruly and exaggerated, wherein we seek to overly satisfy them, and they become ends in themselves.  This provokes Saint Paul to lament, “For many, as I have often told you and now tell you even in tears, conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction. Their God is their stomach; their glory is in their ‘shame.’ Their minds are occupied with earthly things.” (Phil 3:18-19)