HOMILY OF THE HOLY FATHER PAUL VI
Sunday, 27 September 1970
We have conferred, or rather: We have recognised the title of Doctor of the Church upon Saint Teresa of Jesus.
The very fact of pronouncing the name of this most singular and greatest Saint, in this place and on this occasion, raises in our souls a tumult of thoughts: the first would be to recall the figure of Teresa: we see her appear before us, as an exceptional woman, as a religious, who, entirely veiled in humility, penance and simplicity, radiates around her the flame of her human vitality and her spiritual vivacity, and then as reformer and founder of a historic and distinguished Religious Order, and as a most ingenious and prolific writer, teacher of spiritual life, incomparable contemplative and indefatigably active; … how great she is! how unique! how human! how attractive this figure is! Before speaking of anything else, we would be tempted to speak of her, of this Saint, under so many fascinating aspects. But do not expect from Us, at this moment, that We speak to you of the person and work of Teresa of Jesus: the dual bibliography gathered in the volume prepared with such care by our Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints would suffice to discourage anyone wishing to condense into brief words the historical and biographical image of this Saint, which seems to overflow the descriptive outlines in which one would seek to contain it. Moreover, it is not precisely upon her that We wish now to fix, for a moment, our attention. But it is upon the act which We have just performed; upon the fact that We mark a moment in the history of the Church and entrust to the piety and reflection of the People of God, upon the conferring, as We said, of the doctoral title upon Teresa of Ávila, Saint Teresa of Jesus, the great Carmelite.
RAYS OF WISDOM IN HOLINESS
And the meaning of this act is very clear; an act which intentionally wishes to be luminous, which could have a symbolic image in a lamp lit before the humble and majestic figure of the Saint: luminous for the beam of rays that the lamp of the doctoral title projects upon her; and luminous for another beam of rays which this same doctoral title projects upon us.
Upon her, Teresa: the light of the title highlights indisputable values which were already widely recognised in her: the holiness of life, first of all, a value already officially proclaimed, as early as 12 March 1622 – Saint Teresa had died thirty years before – by our Predecessor Gregory XV, in the celebrated canonisation which, with our Carmelite, enrolled in the catalogue of Saints Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, Isidore Agricola, all glories of Catholic Spain, and with them Philip Neri, a Florentine – the latter Roman; and it also highlights “the eminence of doctrine”, in the second place, but this especially (Cf. PROSPERO LAMBERTINI, later Pope Benedict XIV, De Servorum Dei beatificatione, IV, 2, c. 11, n. 13).
The doctrine therefore of Saint Teresa of Ávila shines with the charisms of truth, of conformity with the Catholic faith, of usefulness for the instruction of souls; and another we can particularly note, the charism of wisdom, which makes us think of the most attractive and at the same time most mysterious aspect of Saint Teresa’s doctorate, that is, the influence of divine inspiration in this prodigious and mystical writer. From whence did Teresa receive the treasure of her doctrine? Undoubtedly from her intelligence and her cultural and spiritual formation, from her readings, from conversations with great masters of theology and spirituality, from her singular sensitivity, from her habitual and intense ascetic discipline, from her contemplative meditation, in a word from her correspondence to grace, received in a soul extraordinarily rich and prepared for the practice and experience of prayer. But was this the only source of her “eminent doctrine”? Or should we not find in Saint Teresa acts, facts, states, which do not come from her, but which she underwent, which are in other words so endured and passive, mystical in the true sense of the word, as to have to be attributed to an extraordinary action of the Holy Spirit? We are undoubtedly faced with a soul in which the extraordinary divine initiative is manifest, and from which it is perceived and therefore described by Teresa, in a literary language all her own, simply, faithfully, wonderfully.
TO ASCEND TO GOD WITH ALL ONE’S STRENGTH
Here the questions multiply. The originality of mystical action is among the most delicate and complex psychological phenomena, in which many factors can intervene and oblige the observer to the strictest caution; yet in which the marvels of the human soul manifest in a surprising way, and one above all more comprehensive: love, which celebrates in the depth of the heart its most varied and fullest expressions; a love which we must ultimately call a union, because it is the encounter of the overflowing divine love descending to meet the human love, which strives to ascend with all its strength; it is the most intimate and strongest union with God that a living soul on this earth can experience; and it becomes light, it becomes wisdom; wisdom of divine things, wisdom of human things.
And it is of these secrets that the doctrine of Teresa speaks to us; they are the secrets of prayer. Her doctrine is here. She had the privilege and merit of knowing these secrets through experience, lived in the holiness of a life consecrated to contemplation and simultaneously engaged in action, and through experience both endured and enjoyed in the outpouring of extraordinary spiritual charisms. Teresa had the art of explaining these very secrets, so much so that she ranks among the supreme masters of spiritual life. Not in vain does the statue, which places Teresa’s figure here in this Basilica as Founder, bear the inscription that aptly defines the Saint: Mater Spiritualium.
This prerogative of Saint Teresa, of being a mother, of being a teacher of spiritual persons, was already acknowledged, one may say by unanimous consent. A mother full of enchanting simplicity, a teacher full of admirable depth. The approval of the tradition of the Saints, of Theologians, of the Faithful, of scholars was already assured to her; we have now confirmed it, ensuring that, adorned with this magistral title, she has an even more authoritative mission to carry out, in her Religious Family, in the praying Church, and in the world, with her enduring and present message: the message of prayer.
THE MESSAGE OF PRAYER
It is this light, made today more vivid and penetrating, that the title of Doctor, conferred upon Saint Teresa, reflects upon us. The message of prayer!
It comes to us, children of the Church, at a time marked by a great effort of reform and renewal of liturgical prayer; it comes to us, tempted by the great noise and great engagement of the external world, to succumb to the strain of modern life and to lose the true treasures of our soul in the pursuit of the seductive treasures of the earth. It comes to us, children of our time, as not only the custom of conversing with God is being lost, but also the sense of the need and duty to adore and invoke Him. It comes to us, the message of prayer, song and music of the spirit imbued with grace and open to the conversation of faith, hope and charity, while psychoanalytic exploration dissects the fragile and complicated instrument that we are, no longer to draw from it the voices of suffering and redeemed humanity, but to hear the murky murmur of its animal subconscious and the cries of its unbridled passions and desperate anguish.
Comes the sublime and simple message of the prayer of the wise Teresa, which exhorts us to understand “the great good that God does to a soul when He disposes it to practise mental prayer with desire; … because mental prayer, in my opinion, is nothing other than a friendly way of treating, in which we often find ourselves speaking, alone with Alone, with Him whom we know loves us” (Vida, 8, 4-5).
In summary, this is the message for us from Saint Teresa of Jesus, Doctor of the Holy Church: let us listen to it and make it our own. We must add two observations which seem important. The first is that Saint Teresa of Ávila is the first woman to whom the Church has conferred this title of Doctor; and this fact is not without the recollection of the severe word of Saint Paul: Mulieres in Ecclesiis taceant (1 Cor. 14, 34): which still today means that women are not intended to hold hierarchical functions of teaching or ministry in the Church. Would the apostolic precept now be violated? We can respond with clarity: no. In reality, this is not a title that entails hierarchical functions of teaching, but at the same time we must note that this in no way implies a lesser regard for the sublime mission that women have among the People of God.
On the contrary, by entering the Church through Baptism, a woman participates in the common priesthood of the faithful, which enables her and obliges her to “profess before men the faith received from God through the Church” (Lumen gentium, c. 2, 11). And in this profession of faith many women have reached the highest summits, to the point that their words and writings have been light and guidance for their brothers. Light nourished each day in intimate contact with God, even in the noblest forms of mystical prayer, for which Saint Francis de Sales does not hesitate to say that they possess a special capacity. Light made life in a sublime manner for the good and service of men.
ABOVE ALL OBSTACLES: TO FEEL WITH THE CHURCH
For this reason, the Council wished to recognise the high collaboration with divine grace that women are called to exercise, in order to establish the Kingdom of God on earth, and in exalting the greatness of their mission, it does not hesitate to invite them equally to cooperate “so that humanity may not decline,” to “reconcile men with life,” “to save peace in the world” (Vatican II, Message to Women).
Secondly, we do not wish to omit the fact that Saint Teresa was Spanish, and Spain rightly considers her one of its greatest glories. In her personality the characteristics of her homeland are evident: strength of spirit, depth of feeling, sincerity of heart, love of the Church. Her figure is placed in a glorious era of saints and masters who distinguished their time through the development of spirituality. She listened to them with the humility of a disciple, while at the same time she knew how to judge them with the insight of a great teacher of spiritual life, and as such they regarded her.
Moreover, both within and beyond her native borders, the violent storm of the Reformation was raging, opposing the children of the Church to one another. For her love of truth and intimacy with the Master, she had to confront bitterness and misunderstandings of every kind, and she could not find peace of spirit in the face of the breaking of unity: “I suffered much,” she writes, “and as if I could do anything or were anything, I wept with the Lord and begged Him to remedy so much evil” (Camino de perfección, c. 1, n. 2; BAC, 1962, 185).
This sense of being in sympathy with the Church, tested in pain at the sight of the dispersal of forces, led her to react with all her strong Castilian spirit in the anxiety to build the kingdom of God; she resolved to penetrate the world around her with a reforming vision to give it meaning, harmony, a Christian soul. Five centuries later, Saint Teresa of Ávila continues to leave the marks of her spiritual mission, of the nobility of her heart thirsty for catholicity, of her love stripped of all earthly attachment so as to give herself entirely to the Church. Before her last breath, she could well say, as a summary of her life: “Finally, I am a daughter of the Church!”
In this expression, a welcome foretaste of the glory of the blessed for Teresa of Jesus, we wish to see the spiritual heritage linked to all of Spain. We also wish to see an invitation to all of us to echo her voice, to transform it into a programme for our own lives, so that we may repeat with her: we are children of the Church.
With Our Apostolic Blessing.