Transverberation

Learning to love God wholeheartedly

One of the most fascinating characters in church history is a woman by the name of Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda Dávila y Ahumada.  You and I know her as Saint Teresa of Ávila — the 16th century Carmelite Nun and religious reformer. Active during a time of unprecedented upheaval in the Church, Teresa experienced a series of remarkable visions and spiritual visitations, including the famous transverberation in which a seraph repeatedly drove the fiery point of a lance through her heart.

“I saw a long spear of gold in his hand, and at the point there seemed to be a little fire.  He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it”

If all this sounds a bit too erotic, then consider the language of the Song of Solomon in which the King woos and weds a young shepherdess.  Allegorically, this represents the covenant relationship between God and Israel, or Christ and the Church.  That is good and well, but I have yet to find a preacher who is able to exegete the Song of Solomon, verse by verse, without blushing at the rather explicit descriptions of sexual intimacy!

Bernini depicts

Teresa’s mystical experience in one of his most famous sculptures, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, at Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome. It is both breathtaking and otherworldly. The saint lies on a cloud, her mouth half open and her eyelids closed, with rippling drapery covering her body as if to capture in marble her moment of climax. 

As art historian, Frederick Hartt (of Monuments Men fame) observed, “Bernini not only attended Mass daily but also practised every day the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, intended to induce in the worshiper exact physical and visual counterparts of the experiences of Christ and the saints.”  And in Hartt’s view, “There could hardly be a more compelling embodiment of the Baroque climactic experience of divine love than this [sculptural] group …” (Art: A History of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture Vol. II).

Teresa’s Four Stages of Devotion

Concerned by the Church's worldliness and preoccupation with secular wealth and power, Teresa founded a Reformed Carmelite convent to develop and sustain contemplative prayer, which she considered the main business of the cloistered nuns.

Almost 400 years after her death in 1582, Teresa was proclaimed the first female Doctor of the Church, and fittingly, the ‘Doctor of Prayer.’  The famous prayer Nada te turbe (“Let nothing disturb you”) is attributed to Teresa, having been found in the breviary she used in prayer when she was dying at Alba de Tormes.  It encapsulates the spiritual values and life purpose of the saint.

Let nothing disturb you.

Let nothing make you afraid.

All things are passing.

God alone never changes.

Patience gains all things.

If you have God, you will want for nothing.

God alone suffices.

The consistent theme of Teresa’s teachings and writings is the ascent of the soul to God — not surprising considering that her whole life was dedicated to prayer. In her autobiography, Teresa describes four stages of devotion culminating in total absorption in God:

Devotion of the heart, which is primarily mental prayer and meditation; Devotion of Peace, in which the human will is surrendered to God; Devotion of Union, which is essentially an ecstatic experience, a consciousness of being enraptured by the love of God; and Devotion of Ecstasy, in which the awareness of being in the body disappears and one is absorbed in a trance-like state.

This concept is not entirely without precedent: for example, the 7th century Christian monk, John Climacus or St. John of Sinai, composed a treatise entitled ‘The Ladder of Divine Ascent’, in which he describes 30 forms of spiritual practice culminating in ‘theosis’, or the experience of Divine Love (Agapé). 

However, as the Swiss theologian Benedict Zimmerman notes, “St. Teresa’s position among writers on mystical theology is unique. In all her writings on this subject, she deals with her personal experiences…  She is intensely personal, her system going exactly as far as her experiences, but not a step further.” (Catholic Encyclopedia 1913).

 In other words, Teresa did not set out to write a systematic theology of prayer. Rather, she shared the secret of her own intimacy with God in the hope that it would inspire others to “draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Heb 10.22).

The Goal of Prayer

Teresa shows us, by precept and example, that the goal of prayer is not prayer itself, but rather, union with and absorption into God.  It is the experience of “laying one’s head on Jesus’ breast and listening to the beating of his heart” (John 13.23).  It is the experience of oneness: “That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us” (John 17.21). 

The renowned Russian monk and mystic, St. Seraphim of Sarov, said, “The prayer is not thorough if the man is self-conscious and he is aware he’s praying.”  Although St. Seraphim was specifically referring to the ‘Jesus Prayer,’ the prayer of contemplation used in Eastern Orthodoxy, his words are applicable to any kind of prayer and supplication.  

Communion with God means moving beyond self-consciousness and the awareness of what we are saying or doing, and becoming absorbed in Him.  As the song so aptly says, “Let’s forget about ourselves and concentrate on Him, and worship Him…”

To utilise the imagery of the Song of Solomon, it is the difference between focusing on the person one is making love to, or focusing on the act of love-making itself.  One results in meaningful connection and relationship-enhancing sex, the other in frustration, disappointment, and a sense of betrayal.     

If Teresa has a message for today’s performance-oriented culture, it is this: “God looks at the heart.”  As it was then, the challenge now is to love the Lord with all one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength. 

For that is the true meaning of transverberation.