Holy Week and St. Teresa
Her devotion to the Suffering Christ
Welcome to “Tea, Talk & Tattered Pages”, where we are discussing Teresa of Avila! This statue stands in the church attached to her birthplace in Avila, Spain. As I stood before it, I thought of the “Ecce Homo” bust of Our Lord that had greatly moved her to penitence and devotion. But this was a full-size statue.
Here’s what Marcelle Auclair wrote on page 85 in my copy:
“One day in 1553, as she was passing through the oratory, [Teresa] noticed a bust, an Ecce Homo, which someone had left there until some other place could be found for it. ‘It represented,’ [Teresa wrote] ‘and that in a way so well calculated to arouse devotion, that from the very first glance I was moved at the thought of His sufferings for us, Christ covered with wounds. My heart was shattered with remorse when I thought of those wounds and my ingratitude. I threw myself on my knees, in tears, and begged Him to strengthen me once for always, that I might not offend Him for the future.’”
Auclair writes, “The crown of thorns, the heart-rending expression of the glazed eyes, made her understand what she really was: she saw she would find help nowhere but in God, she would not get right again until He answered her heart’s appeal.”
This is where Teresa marked the change in her life from being a half-hearted Christian who wanted to find an easy way, to beginning her journey to full union with Christ. Little by little, she began to live more fully in Him and with Him.
Later in our pilgrimage, we went to Alba de Tormes and saw the room where she died. And look what we saw there!
Do you see it? In the back of the room? I can’t help thinking that was the original statue that she saw.
(Photo Credits: Ron McGuire)
I love the way it looks like Jesus is looking down at her. Now of course, she is with Him in glory for all eternity!
Elsewhere in the book, Auclair talks about another devotion of St. Teresa’s that relates to Holy Week. This was toward the end of her life (pages 427-428 in my copy).
“Christ in the Garden of Olives. Even before entering [the Carmelites], she had preferred this scene of the Passion to all others, for, persuaded as she was of her unworthiness, she dared not keep company with Jesus, except when she saw Him abandoned and betrayed.
“‘I used to think [Teresa wrote] of the sweat, the distress He had suffered. I wanted to wipe away this painful sweat; I remember that I dared not, thinking of the gravity of my sins. For many years before going to sleep, when I recommended myself to God, I always spent a short time thinking about the scene in the Garden of Olives. It was in this way that I began to practice mental prayer without knowing that it was mental prayer. I acquired the habit of it, as I did that of never omitting to make the Sign of the Cross.’”
We have the great grace of being able to read the Scriptures, to meditate on the events of the life of Our Savior, and to apply them to our own lives. Teresa gives us a wonderful example of this. As Teresa’s health declined at the end of her life,
“When fever and pain prevented her from sleeping, she drained to the dregs the chalice of abandonment at the hands of those belonging to her: but was it not a new favor to be thus called by her Master to share His solitude? Jesus was there with her in her solitude as she had kept Him company in the Garden [of Olives].” (p. 428)
As we suffer the trials and tribulations of our own lives, let us unite our sufferings to the sufferings of Our Lord, especially as we commemorate them in this Holiest of all Weeks of the Year!