Monday, October 15, 2012

Feast of Saint Teresa of Avila


To celebrate the feast of one of the great Carmelites and a Doctor of the Church, here is a quote from St. Teresa of Avila. In context:
When I see people making great progress, and being resolute and detached and courageous, I conceive a great love for them and should be glad if I could see more of them: I think they are a help to me. People who I see to be timid and who appear to be making half-hearted attempts to do things which so far as human reason can judge they can do perfectly well seem to distress me and make me pray to God for them and to the saints who accomplished these very things which now frighten us. Not that I am good for anything, but I believe that God helps those who set out to do great things for His sake and never fails those who trust in Him alone. And I should like to find someone who would help me to believe this to be so, and to have no anxiety about what I am to eat and put on, but leave it to God.
Taken from The Spiritual Relations, 1560 (The Complete Works of St. Theresa, Volume 1, [1946] Sheed and Ward, pg. 309).

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