Enter, enter within yourselves

Translated from the original by Ana Giménez

We live in impetuous societies where we want to achieve everything straight away. Time and effort seems to have disappeared, legal or illegal pills have the same effect in minutes. We would like it to happen the same way in spiritual life. If we try to be honest, if we have a prayer life, why does God take so much to be made known? Will it take much longer to get to the seventh mansion? I wish I could shorten this journey and make it more bearable so that many people would participate in this adventure. Nevertheless, Teresa advises us of the temptation, typical of the third mansion: the wish to grow spiritually without changing our way of living or our heart. Or feel confident that we are better than the rest as we may have reached to this point. To answer to the first temptation, Teresa proposes a practical exam which can be found on the second chapter of the third mansion.

A rich person, who is childless with an unfulfilled wish to have more,

“How can Our Lord ask him to leave all for His sake?” The same if he wants to increase his wealth (read The Interior Castle 3.2.4).She keeps on saying the same thing with an example of those who under any circumstance accept to lose their honour to be lessened, or be disparaged by someone, or despised or injured. Then she applies it to the nuns (number 6) to warn them that if they don´t have those temptations, they may have other ones and should see “If you are really detached from the things you have abandoned” (…) “if you have obtained the mastery over your passions.” (…) “It is whether we try to practise the virtues, and make a complete surrender of our wills to God” and “order our lives as His Majesty ordains: let us desire that not our wills, but His will, be done.”

I advise to the servants of love to revise the Church proposals to the Renunciation of Sin in the rite of Baptism, and look at the devil in the eyes from the questions proposed, and try by all means to assimilate them in your life, in case we may become like those who “canonizan” (“canonise” / those who “consider they have acted in a highly virtuous way”, The Interior Castle 3.2.3), as Teresa says. 

CELEBRANT: Do you reject to feel superior to others, that is, to any kind of :
— abuse;
— discrimination;
— pharisaism, hypocrisy, cynism;
— pride;
— personal selfishness;
— contempt.
PARENTS AND GODPARENTS: Yes, I do.

CELEBRANT: Do you reject to refrain from injustice and the needs of people and institutions due to: 

— cowardice;
— laziness;
— comfort;
— personal benefit.
PARENTS AND GODPARENTS: Yes, I do.

CELEBRANT: Do you reject materialistic criteria and behaviour which consider
— money as supreme wish in life;
— pleasure above all;
— business as a value;
— our own interest above common good.

PARENTS AND GODPARENTS: Yes, I do.

(Photo: Pia, Pexels.com)