Letter 234. To Father Gonzalo Davila, S.J, Avila, about June, 1578

THE SAINT'S CONFESSOR

How to be recolleSied while leading a busy life,

Jesus be with your Reverence.

IT is a long while since anything has mortified me so much as the letter 1 received from you to-day, for I am not humble enough to wish to pass for one so proud, nor ought your Reverence to prove your humility at such a dear cost to me. Never did I so long to tear up any letter of yours! I assure you that you know how to mortify me, and to show me what I really am by appearing to think I believe myself capable of teaching others. God deliver me from such an idea: I do not like to remember it. I know that the fault is mine, though perhaps I care less about that than for seeing your Reverence truly devout. This weakness and my love for you may be the cause of all the foolish things I say to you, and may make me speak freely without considering my words. Sometimes 1 feel scrupulous afterwards about what I have said, and did I not feel a scruple about being disobedient, I should not comply with your request, such repugnance do I feel at doing so. May God accept it. Amen.

As one of my great faults is to judge others by myself in the matter of prayer, your Reverence must pay no attention to what I say, for God has given very different abilities to you from those He has bestowed on a foolish, insignificant woman like myself.

Considering the grace our Lord has granted me by enabling me to realize His a6tual presence, and yet that much business must pass through my hands on account of my office, I feel that neither persecutions nor trials harass me so greatly as these affairs. When the matter is one that can be done at once, I sometimes, indeed generally, work until one or two o'clock in the morning or even later, in order that my soul may not be forced to attend to anything but Him Who dwells within it. As this has seriously injured my health, I think it must be a temptation, though it seems to leave my soul at greater liberty. I am like a person with a very urgent, important affair to attend to, who, to keep his mind free for it, finishes his other work quickly: therefore I am glad when I can hand over any business to the nuns, though perhaps I might have done it better myself. But as there is a good reason for it, His Majesty supplies what is wanting, and I find that my soul makes notably better progress if I withdraw it from earthly things. Though I see this clearly, I am often careless about it, by which I feel that I undoubtedly lose when I should have gained, had I taken greater pains.

This does not refer to serious matters which cannot be negledied, and I must be mistaken in applying it to your Reverence, for your duties are grave ones and I believe it would be wrong to depute them to other people. Yet when I see that your health suffers, I wish you had less work. Indeed, I thank our Lord for the manner in which you take to heart all that affe(fls the welfare of your house, for I am not too foolish to understand that your talent for business is a great grace from God and acquires much merit for you. It makes me very envious, for I wish my superior possessed the same ability. Now that God has given you to me as my soul's superior, I hope you will take as much pains with it as with your spring of water (which greatly amuses me). But water is so necessary in a religious house that all your labours are spent in a good cause.

There is nothing left to say: I speak as openly to you as I should to God Himself. I believe that the efforts made by superiors to discharge their duties are so pleasing to Him that He gives them in a short time what He would otherwise only have granted by slow degrees. This, as well as what I said before, has been taught me by experience. However, as I know that your Reverence is usually overwhelmed with affairs, the idea occurred to me of saying what I did. On reflexion, I realize that your circumstances differ from mine. In future I will cure myself of the habit of speaking on impulse, seeing how dear it costs me. The temptation will cease when your health returns. May God restore it as He can and as I desire. The servant of your Reverence, Teresa de Jesus.