Today, the Carmelite friars and nuns celebrate the feast of their saint and Doctor of the Church St. Teresa of Avila popularly known as St Teresa of Jesus.
Pope Paul VI selected one of her many titles while proclaiming her, The Doctor of the Church, was St. Teresa of Avila – The Teacher of Prayer. Pope John Paul II encouraged us to learn to pray from the Doctors of the Church, St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila, both Carmelites saints in the document Novo Mellennio Ineunte (no.33).
In all her major writings–The Life, The Way of Perfection, The Interior Castle—she teaches us how to pray; she was well-versed in the practice of prayer. Her teaching flows from her own experience and not from books on prayer as she began writing on prayer at the age of 47.
After realising that all of us do not travel by the same path to perfection, and that God leads us by different paths, St Teresa gives us different grades of prayers so that we can grow in relationship with the Almighty.
St. Teresa in her first book—The Life, explains the grades of prayer by using the symbol of the “four waters,”
The First Stage: The Well
When we first begin, it feels laborious to discipline ourselves to spend time in prayer each day—it feels like harder work than we think it should be. Teresa compares this first stage to watering the garden using a bucket to draw water out of a well. If we were watering a garden with a bucket, we would have to dip the bucket into the well, draw the heavy bucket up with the rope, carry it to the garden and water the plants. Then, we would walk back over to the well, let down the bucket, draw it up again, walk back to the garden and pour it on the plants. Over and over we would make that trip to give the garden all the water it needs.
Similarly, when we first begin the spiritual journey and changing our habit, it can feel like an awkward and difficult task. It is only the first stage.
The Second Stage: The Aqueduct
After some time in this first stage, we will find that the journey is becoming a little easier and we can experience some times when we feel quite connected to God and blessed by this time alone with our Lord.
According to St Teresa we will be able to fill our bucket from a water wheel where we have a little less work to do. The water wheel fills the bucket for us and we do not experience as much labour as when we filled it ourselves from the well. “Here the soul begins to be recollected and comes upon something supernatural because in no way can it acquire this prayer through any efforts it may make. . .”.(Life 14.2)
The Third Stage: The stream of water
In the first three images, water comes to us from the well, the mountains and now, a flowing stream. In this third picture, we benefit from the stream with little effort; we are allowed to be at rest in God alone, who becomes the active presence in our life of prayer.
The Fourth Stage: Rain
Some souls will continue on the journey and the Holy Spirit may choose to invite them into the fourth way of “watering the garden.” Here, we have no work to do—the “garden” of our soul is watered by God’s “rain” and we are passive receivers of this great gift.
It is living the truth of Jesus’ statement, “but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
“In this fourth water the soul isn’t in possession of its senses, but it rejoices without understanding what it is rejoicing in. It understands that it is enjoying a good in which are gathered together all good, but this good is incomprehensible.” (Life 18.1)
Genuine prayer is something dynamic, living; something therefore that has to grow continually. If prayer is a loving conversation with God, it must become more and more intimate.
(The writer is a member of the Karnataka-Goa Province of the Order of Discalced Carmelites based at the Carmelite Monastery Margao)
