From the Pastor

Dear Friends in Christ,

This week on October 15th we celebrated the Feast of St. Teresa of Avila, on of the greatest mystics and a doctor of the Church. Pope Benedict XVI writes this about St. Teresa, “It is far from easy to sum up in a few words Teresa’s profound and articulate spirituality. I would like to mention a few essential points. In the first place St. Teresa proposes the evangelical virtues as the basis of all Christian and human life and in particular, detachment from possessions, that is, evangelical poverty, and this concerns all of us; love for one another as an essential element of community and social life; humility as love for the truth; determination as a fruit of Christian daring; theological hope, which she describes as the thirst for living water. Then we should not forget the human virtues: affability, truthfulness, modesty, courtesy, cheerfulness, culture.

“Secondly, St. Teresa proposes a profound harmony with the great biblical figures and eager listening to the word of God. She feels above all closely in tune with the Bride in the Song of Songs and with the Apostle Paul, as well as with Christ in the Passion and with Jesus in the Eucharist.

“The Saint then stresses how essential prayer is. Praying, she says, ‘means being on terms of friendship with God frequently conversing in secret with him who, we know, loves us’ (Vida 8, 5). St .Teresa’s idea coincides with Thomas Aquinas’ definition of theological charity as ‘amicitia quaedam hominis ad Deum,’ a type of human friendship with God, who offered humanity his friendship first; it is from God that the initiative comes (cf. Summa Theologiae II-II, 23, 1). “Prayer is life and develops gradually, in pace with the growth of Christian life: it begins with vocal prayer, passes through interiorization by means of meditation and recollection, until it attains the union of love with Christ and with the Holy Trinity. Obviously, in the development of prayer climbing to the highest steps does not mean abandoning the previous type of prayer. Rather, it is a gradual deepening of the relationship with God that envelops the whole of life.

“Rather than a pedagogy, Teresa’s is a true ‘mystagogy’ of prayer: she teaches those who read her works how to pray by praying with them….”

One of Teresa’s most famous prayers is called the “Bookmark Prayer.” Maybe you can try praying it every day this week.



Yours in Christ,

Msgr. Robert Panke