Scruples and Teresa of Avila?

This week, I began reading Saint Teresa of Avila: Collected Works translated by Kieran Kavanaugh OCD and Otilio Rodriques CD starting with “The Book of Her Life.” 

I'd looked forward to connecting with this great lady. My first reaction, however, was one of irritation. Why did Teresa continually insist that her actions were so sinful? Wasn't this just a case of scruples? The Catholic Encyclopedia defines scruples as "An unfounded apprehension and consequently unwarranted fear that something is a sin, which, as a matter of fact, is not.“

Her vagueness about her so called “sins,” bothered me. To what loose and dangerous activities did she allude, save for some hints at friendships that were perhaps more secular than spiritual. Yet how were these friendships sinful when she was always trying to encourage these persons to a life of prayer?  What could be sinful in that, save that perhaps she sought some degree of personal glory in the attentions and love of these persons?

Then I remembered that saints do not view their behavior the way we do. Aware of God’s tremendous love for them, they view anything that might distract them from God, as sinful. While we might deem these “sins”  simply as distractions due to our humanity, saints view everything through the lens of love – God’s love for them and their feeble response to that love. I remember once having tried to become a saint and remember how the sense of sin tainted everything, even my efforts at prayer, so aware was I of wanting to excel.

During the intervening years, I've had to come to terms with my "sinfulness." While once shame had me praying while hiding my face in shame, I now view sin -- not as something deserving punishment but as something we do to ourselves.By choosing to ignore the movement of grace we block the door to the gift God brings us. My spiritual director once suggested that rather than berate myself for my failures of grace, why not celebrate the times I did respond. Why not view our failures as reminders that God is waiting to assist us. They force us to acknowledge our helplessness and dependence on our constantly loving creator.

Teresa (thanks to that infinitely loving God she remembers to praise constantly throughout her autobiography) speaks much the same way. She asks how God can work within us if we avoid opening ourselves to that loving presence because we are ashamed of our imperfections. If we take the time to turn to God, she reminds us, God will shower his graces upon us. 

Whether or not Teresa suffered from a surfeit of scrupulosity, no longer troubles me. Her efforts, despite her reluctance (and even repugnance), to live a life of prayer provide us with a mirror in which to observe our own unwillingness to pursue a similar course. “Don’t give up,” I hear her telling us. "Yes. You’ve been a miserable failure thus far, but keep turning toward God. That’s all that’s necessary. God will guide you the rest of the way.”


Pastel by Beryl: Fall on a Lake Superior back road

The violence of the daily

In her weekly e-mail update titled "Reflection Questions," leadership and life coach Marcia Hyatt quotes Trappist monk and world renowned spiritual author Thomas Merton

"To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to the violence of our times," she asks us to reflect on the ways in which we succumb to the violence of our times.

How intriguing to find Merton relating "good deeds" to the "violence of our times." Certainly, the issues he mentions are ones that concern all who struggle to make good use of their time. Merton, however, is not accusing the works themselves but the way in which we perform those works.

In reflecting on this, I realize that I succumb to this violence each time I forget to be fully present to whatever it is I am doing. Each time I rush through the "now" to get to what should be an “attitude” but instead has become a “place,”: Inner quiet and focus.

Why quiet should be a place toward which I rush might stem from my monastic days when we were warned against the prayer of silence or centering which the church termed “the doctrine [heretical] of quietism.” Catholic Encyclopedia.

"Generally speaking [quietism is]a sort of false or exaggerated mysticism, which under the guise of the loftiest spirituality contains erroneous notions which, if consistently followed, would prove fatal to morality. ...In its essential features Quietism is a characteristic of the religions of India. Both Pantheistic Brahmanism and Buddhism aim at a sort of self-annihilation, a state of indifference in which the soul enjoys an imperturbable tranquility. And the means of bringing this about is the recognition of one's identity with Brahma, the all-god, or, for the Buddhist, the quenching of desire and the consequent attainment of Nirvana, incompletely in the present life, but completely after death."

Thomas Merton helped turn this doctrine on its head by reminding the Church of it’s ancient mystical traditions, diffusing the threat of "heresy," and introducing millions to lives of contemplation. Rather than warning against the falsity of eastern mystic traditions, "Merton was a keen proponent of interfaith understanding. He pioneered dialogue with prominent Asian spiritual figures, including the Dalai Lama, D.T. Suzuki, the Japanese writer on the Zen tradition, and the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh."

Perhaps in "succumbing to the violence of our times," I've also "succumbed to the violence of" Church doctrine.