Chapter XII

That one who truly loves God must care little for life or honour. That one who seeks after perfection must despise honours.¹

1. Having renounced all else, religious must renounce themselves. 2. The religious life a martyrdom. 3. Joy brought by mortification. 4. Contemplation incompatible with a desire for honour or riches. 5. Forsaking all things. 6. Humility. 7. Proud thoughts corrected by outward acts of humility. 8. Evil arising in convents from a regard for honour. 9. Wrong done by taking offence.

1. Let us now speak of other small matters which are very important, insignificant as they may appear. All this seems an enormous work, as indeed it is, being a warfare carried on against self; yet, when once we begin it, God so works in our souls, bestowing on them numerous graces, that all we can do in this life seems but a trifle. We nuns have done the greater part of our task; we have given up our liberty for the love of God and placed it in the power of another. We endure so much in our labours,² fasts,³ silence,⁴ enclosure,⁵ attendance at choir,⁶ that, however strongly we may wish for our ease, we can rarely enjoy it,⁷ and perhaps, among the many convents I have visited, I may be the only nun who tries to obtain it! Why then do we draw back from interior mortification, which is the mainspring of all the rest, by which they become more meritorious and perfect and are finally performed with sweetness and peace?

2. This interior mortification, as I said, is acquired little by little through never following our own will or liking even in the most trifling matters, until we have subdued the body to the spirit. I repeat, that this is entirely or at least mainly accomplished by renouncing all care for ourselves and our own pleasure. If we have really begun to serve our Lord, the least we can offer Him is our life, after having yielded our will to Him. What is there to fear in this? Whoever is a true religious, or is genuinely devoted to prayer and aspires to enjoy divine consolations, should be convinced that she must not recoil from wishing either to die,⁸ or to suffer martyrdom for His sake.⁹ Do you not know, sisters, that the life of a good religious, and of one who wishes to be among the most intimate friends of God, is one long martyrdom? 'Long,' because, compared to decapitation, which lasts but an instant, it may be termed long: but a whole life-time is short, and sometimes very short indeed. How do we know but that ours may not be so short as to end in an hour, or even in a moment, after we have determined to give ourselves entirely to God? It is quite possible, for we cannot depend on anything that passes away, much less on life, on which we must not reckon for a single day. Who, thinking each hour to be his last, would not spend it in labour?

3. Trust me, this is the safest view to take, therefore we must learn to cross our will in everything; although we may not succeed at once, yet little by little, by the help of prayer, as I said, without knowing how, we shall reach the summit. But how rigorous it sounds to say that we must never please ourselves, unless we are told of the consolation this self-denial brings with it, and of the security it obtains during this life! But, as you all practise it here, the principal part is already done: each one is urging her sisters on, and strives to excel the rest. Be most watchful over your secret feelings, especially such as concern precedence.¹⁰ God deliver us, for the sake of His Passion, from saying, or from deliberately thinking, 'I am her senior in the Order': 'I am older than she': 'I have done more work': 'She is better treated than I am.'

4. When such thoughts arise in your minds, you must suppress them at once: if you dwell upon them or give them utterance they will prove contagious and will give rise to great evils in a religious house. Should your Prioress allow anything of this kind, however slight it may be, you must believe that God has permitted her to hold that office in punishment for your sins, and that it is the beginning of your ruin. Cry to Him for aid and let all your prayers be directed to obtain a remedy, for you are in danger. A religious, or a person who practises prayer with the genuine resolution of obtaining the graces and joys God grants to souls, is bound to this detachment from everything.¹¹

5. You may think I insist too much on this, and that I treat it with excessive severity, as God bestows His consolations on souls wanting in this detachment. Doubtless this is the case, for in His infinite wisdom He knows they can be thus drawn to forsake all things for His sake. By 'forsaking all things'¹² I do not necessarily mean entering religion, for there may be obstacles preventing this, and in every state perfect souls may be detached and humble; however, this is more difficult whilst living in the world, for our surroundings influence us strongly. But rest assured of this — people may desire honours or possessions in monasteries as well as outside them (yet the sin is greater as the temptation is less),¹³ but such souls, although they may have spent years in prayer, or rather in speculations (for perfect prayer eventually destroys these vices), will never make great progress nor enjoy the real fruit of prayer.

6. Ascertain, sisters, whether you care for these trifles, for you came here that you might spurn them. They give you no increase of honour, and you miss advantages which would have brought you more honour in the end; so discredit and loss are here combined. Let each one examine whether she is truly humble, and she will learn what progress she has made. I do not think the devil would dare to tempt a lowly heart with even the suggestions of a wish for precedence, for he is sagacious enough to fear the wound he would receive.

Such a temptation of the evil one can only strengthen and increase this virtue in a truly humble heart, which will reflect upon its former life, the little service it has rendered to our Lord compared with what it owed Him, and the wonders He performed in abasing Himself to give us an example of lowliness: it will recall its sins, and remember that it has deserved hell in return for them. These reflections so benefit the mind that Satan dares not return next day, for fear of getting a broken head.

7. Take this advice from me and do not forget it — that not only should you gain the victory within your own heart (where it would be very wrong not to benefit by the temptation), but even outwardly you ought to let your sisters be the gainers by its means if you would be avenged on the devil and escape from the repetition of such thoughts. As soon as they arise, tell the Prioress of them and ask her to give you some very mean employment, or else of your own accord do any sort of work of the kind. Meanwhile, study how to subdue your will in the things you are most averse to (our Lord will show you many ways of doing this), and perform some public penances such as are usual in the house.¹⁴ Thus the temptation will quickly vanish. God deliver us from people who try to serve Him yet who care for their honour or fear disgrace. What we gain by this only does us harm: as I said, honour is lost by those who seek it; above all by religious, especially in the matter of rank, for no poison in the world is so fatal to perfection.

8. You may say that this is a trifling fault and only human nature; that it is of no importance. Do not hold it lightly; it spreads in monasteries as quickly as foam gathers on the sea; nothing can be called trifling in so great a danger as these points of honour and sensitiveness about affronts. Would you like to know the chief reason — not to speak of other causes? Some slight annoyance, hardly worth mentioning, is offered you, and the devil instigates one of your sisters to consider it a grave insult: she even thinks it a charity to tell you of it and to ask you how you could bear such an injury: she says she begs God to grant you patience; she should offer it up to Him, for a saint could bear no more.

9. In short, the evil one makes mischief through another's tongue: so that although you are resolved to suffer meekly you are tempted to vainglory on account of what you have not borne as well as you ought to have done. Human nature is so weak that though we overcome the temptation by telling ourselves there is no cause for annoyance, yet we think we have done something praiseworthy and feel we have been injured — how much more when others agree with us! This makes the trouble worse; we hold that we are in the right; our souls lose an occasion of gaining merit and are left weaker than before, while a door is opened to Satan by which he can return another time to tempt us more severely. It may even happen that, when you are willing to bear an injury, some one may come and ask you: ' Are you to be treated like a dog? surely every one ought to have some self-respect!' Oh! for the love of God, sisters, never show such indiscreet sympathy with one another respecting mere fancied injuries, which is like that shown to holy Job by his wife and friends.

Footnotes

1. Valladolid edition, ch. xiii.; Escorial, ch. xviii. ↩

2. Rule, 13. Const. 23. Visit. 11. ↩

3. Rule, 10. Const. 11. ↩

4. Rule, 14. Const. 5. ↩

5. Const. 13. Found. ch. xxxi. 42. Life, ch. vii. 5. ↩

6. Rule, 6. Const. 1-6. ↩

7. Life, ch. xiii. 30. ↩

8. 'Either to die or to suffer,' the genuine form of St. Teresa's motto, which occurs also in an undated letter to a Carmelite nun (circa 1578). The usual wording, 'To suffer or to die,' is nowhere to be found in the Saint's writings. Life, ch. xl. 27. 3 sqq. ↩

9. One of the nuns asked our holy Mother how to become a saint. She answered: 'Daughter, we are soon going to make a foundation; then you will learn the way.' They went, and the sister met with a great many trials: she told them to the Saint, who replied: 'Daughter, did you not ask me to teach you how to become a saint? This is the way' — meaning that sanctity lay in suffering for God. (Fuente, vol. vi. 318, nn. 20, 21. Deposition of Isabel of Jesus.) ↩

10. Life, ch. xxi. 12; ch. xxvii. 16. Rel. i. 28. Castle, M. v. ch. iii. 10-12. Concep. ch. ii. 15. ↩

11. Escorial edition, ch. xix. That care for honour and for the wisdom of this world must be avoided in order to arrive at true wisdom. ↩

12. St. Matt. xix. 27. St. Mark, x. 28. St. Luke xviii. 28: 'Reliquimus omnia, et secuti sumus Te.' ↩

13. Concep. ch. ii. 30, 32, 33. Way of Perf. ch. xxxvi. 2-7. ↩

14. Const. 25. ↩