 Welcome to The Commentaries, a podcast series from Tan in which you'll learn how to read and understand history's greatest Catholic works from today's greatest Catholic scholars. In every series of The Commentaries, your expert host will be your personal guide to not just read the book, but to live the book, shining the light of its eternal truths into our modern darkness. Visit tancommentaries.com to get your copy of the book and to subscribe for access to all the great reading plans, new episodes, bonus content, and exclusive deals for listeners of The Commentaries. Greetings and welcome back. I'm Father Timothy Reid and today is day 10 of our podcast series on St. Teresa of Avalus' magnificent spiritual treatise, The Interior Castle. Next time we cover the third chapter of the fourth mansions and today we begin our study of the fifth mansions of The Interior Castle and we'll be looking at the first two chapters of this section. So let's get started. In this first chapter, St. Teresa begins by making the point that the Lord gives favors to us according to the degree that we give ourselves to him if we have reached union with him. She believes that most of her nuns will reach this fifth mansion where union with God really takes root. Indeed, she makes the point that all Carmelites are called to prayer and contemplation, which is enjoying heaven on earth and which is a gift that lies within ourselves. But for contemplation to happen, we must dispose ourselves for it through practicing the virtues and giving ourselves to God, begging him to strengthen our souls. St. Teresa then begins comparing the prayer of union in the fifth mansions with the prayer in the fourth mansions. Whereas the prayer in the fourth mansions is like a drowsiness because she says the soul seems to slumber, being neither quite asleep nor wholly awake. In the fifth, the soul is asleep, both to the world and to itself. In fact, St. Teresa writes that during the short time this state lasts, the soul is deprived of all feeling whatever, being unable to think on any subject even if it wished. No effort is needed here to suspend the thoughts. The soul can love it knows not how, nor whom it loves, nor what it desires. In fact, it has died entirely to this world to live more truly than ever in God. She says this is a delicious death, for the soul is deprived of the faculties it exercised while in the body, delicious because although not really the case, it seems to have left its mortal covering to abide more entirely in God. Furthermore, Teresa tells us that the mind entirely concentrates itself on trying to understand what is happening which is beyond its power. It is so astounded that if consciousness is not completely lost, at least no movement is possible. The person may be compared to one who falls into a dead faint with dismay. Whereas the soul in the fourth mansions still experiences doubts. She says that when you come to the fifth mansions and you begin to experience what she calls this prayer of union, which is a deeper form of contemplative prayer, there are no doubts. She says none of the little lizards that can poke their heads into the fourth mansions can come into the fifth mansions. One's imagination, understanding, and memory, not even the devil, can impede the union in the fifth mansions. And so there are tremendous riches given to the soul because God works within the soul without any disturbance, not even from the person himself. Now can you imagine being so united to God to be absorbed in God in this way? This is the prayer of union. This is the prayer you experience in the fifth mansions. And this is just a foretaste of what we will experience in heaven. Now St. Teresa does recognize that there are many different types of unions. What she says are unions with earthly vanities, but the union with God of which she speaks is above all earthly joys, pleasure, and satisfaction. In short, this spiritual union is much different from any earthly delights we might experience. Now very humbly, St. Teresa is quick to submit her opinions and experiences to the expertise of theologians whom she knows receive light from God to understand the truth of things. So keep in mind though that Teresa has suffered from confessors who have known much less about the spiritual life than she, men who have tried to convince her that her experiences are from the devil. So she is convinced that both faith and humility are necessary to receive these gifts. She writes, I am convinced that those who refuse to believe that God can do far more than this, and that he is pleased now as in the past to communicate himself to his creatures, shut fast their hearts against receiving such favors themselves. Do not imitate them sisters, be convinced that it is possible for God to perform still greater wonders. Do not concern yourselves as to whether those who receive these graces are good or wicked. As I said, he knows best, and it is no business of yours. You should serve him with a single heart and with humility, and should praise him for his works and wonders. Now, moreover, she explains that there is a certitude, a conviction given to the soul after this union occurs that it was in God and that God was in it. This union in the 5th mansions is itself generally brief, maybe minutes, but it seems much briefer while experiencing it. And yet, although years may pass before this favor recurs, the soul can never forget it, nor doubt the fact. In fact, Teresa maintains that a soul which does not fill this assurance, this conviction, has not been united to God entirely. Now, Saint Teresa ends this first chapter by reminding us that the prayer of union is not something we can accomplish, but that God must bring the soul to this union, just like the bride in the Song of Songs was brought to the wine cellar, which is the soul center. We must, however, dispose ourselves through this grace, through our love and self-surrender. And so, once again, at the end of this chapter, we have to ask ourselves how committed we are to uniting our personal will to God's holy will. And at Teresa's prompting, we have to ask ourselves if we truly recognize our own baseness and frailty and recognize how unworthy we are to be the servants of so great a Lord. Now as we get into the second chapter, Saint Teresa continues explaining the fifth mansions by way of her famous analogy of the silkworm, which encloses itself in cocoons by spinning silk. Now, eventually the ugly silkworm is transformed into a lovely white butterfly who emerges from the cocoon. And she makes the point that the silkworm symbolizes a soul which begins to live by the help God gives it, just through the remedies of the church, confession, reading good books, hearing sermons, and so forth. So these things help a person to mature to the point in which he can spin the cocoon. And the cocoon is Christ. God himself is the mansion we build ourselves. Now it's not that we build God, but in preparing our souls properly, God unites himself to us. Thus, Teresa rouses her daughters to weave this cocoon quickly by getting rid of self-love and self-will, attachments to earthly things, and by performing deeds of penance, prayer, mortification, by being obedient and doing good works. And then, when the soul is truly dead to the things of the world, it is transformed into a beautiful white butterfly. And Teresa says a soul at this state desires to praise our Lord and longs to sacrifice itself and die a thousand deaths for him. It feels an unconquerable desire for great crosses and would like to perform the most severe penances its size for solitude and would have all men know God, while it is bitterly grieved at seeing them offend him. And so this transformation leads to a new type of restlessness, a distaste for earthly things. And there is a new greatness in the soul that comes from having rested in God. And the soul realizes that creatures will never give it true rest. Now Saint Teresa believes that the soul who experiences this prayer of union and undergoes this transformation process, that that soul experiences a particular suffering now that it is estranged from the world. Now it is true that these souls experience deep peace within their souls, and in fact this peace comes from the suffering which is the painful desire to leave the world. And yet there is the pain that it rises from the fear that God is so often offended and the regret that the soul is not yet fully surrendered to God and that many souls are lost. She writes in paragraphs 8 and 9, I do not mean that those who reach this stage possess no peace, they do so in a very high degree. For their sorrows, though extremely severe, are so beneficial and proceed from so good a source as to procure both peace and happiness. Discontent with this world gives such a painful longing to quit it that if the heart finds comfort it is solely from the thought that God wishes it to remain here in banishment. Even this is not enough to reconcile it to fate, for after all of the gifts received it is not yet so entirely surrendered to the will of God as it afterwards becomes. Here, although conformed to his will, the soul feels an unconquerable reluctance to submit, for our Lord has not given it higher grace. During prayer this grief breaks forth in floods of tears probably from the great pain felt at seeing God offended, and in thinking how many souls, both heretics and heathens, are lost eternally, and the keenest grief of all Christians also. The soul realizes the greatness of God's mercy and knows that however wicked men are, they may still repent and be saved, yet it fears that many precipitate themselves into hell. So this pain that she is talking about here, this is an unearthly pain much worse than any pain we can experience here, and Teresa goes on to compare the soul to wax impressed with the seal. At this point the soul, like impassive wax, only desires what God wants for it. It remains still and gives its consent to God to do his work upon it. In the prayer of union God impresses upon the soul like a seal upon wax, a likeness with Christ in his love and obedience to the Father, his love of neighbor, and his willingness to suffer in doing God's will. So think Teresa enters into her discussion of this new realm of the spiritual life with some amount of trepidation, worrying that she doesn't have the words to explain what occurs here, so sublime as it is. In reaching the fifth mansions, the soul truly experiences union with God, and this union with God is transformative, and it suspends one's faculties so that it is wholly absorbed in God. This union is not something the soul achieves on its own, although it must dispose itself for this great gift from God. This transformation in union with God are indicated by an increased desire for penance and solitude, and the hope that all might know God. It's also marked by great pain at the thought that God has ever offended. And lastly, the soul who experiences this union knows with absolute certitude that it has been in God and that God has been in it. This brings us to the end of Day 10. Next time we'll look at the third and fourth chapters of the fifth mansions. Thank you so much for listening and for joining me on this journey to grow deeper in your spiritual life. As always, let's conclude by praying the prayer of St. Teresa. Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing frighten you. All things are passing away. God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing. God alone suffices. Amen. May God bless you and may St. Teresa intercede for you. This has been an episode of The Commentaries, a podcast brought to you by Tan. To follow the show, study more of the greatest Catholic classics, and to support the commentaries and other great free content from Tan, visit tancommentaries.com to subscribe and use coupon code COM25 to get 25% off your next order, including the interior castle and countless more spiritual works to deepen your interior life and guide you to heaven.