 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. Welcome back. Today is day seven of The Commentaries series on The Interior Castle by the great Spanish Carmelite mystics, Saint Teresa of Avila. I'm Father Timothy Reed. And after finishing our study of the third mansions of The Interior Castle last time, we are now ready to begin our look into the fourth mansions of The Interior Castle. This brings us to an important juncture in the book, for as the soul moves from the third to the fourth mansions, the soul moves from the point of doing much of the work itself to make progress and a life of prayer to God actually working within it. This is because it is in the fourth mansions that what we call contemplative prayer begins to take place. In fact, there's a very informative footnote at the bottom, this first page of the chapter that talks about the two different types of contemplation acquired or natural and infused or supernatural. That's really worth your time to read. What's important for us to understand is that this mansion is a sort of transitional period from self-generated prayer into God-given prayer, from meditation to contemplation. So let's get started. As we go through this book, it's common to wonder how long it's going to take for us to move through our own personal interior castle to this point in which contemplation begins. But how long it takes to get into the fourth mansions is really up to the Lord. There's no set rule. Saint Teresa insists upon God's freedom to give spiritual favors as he sees fit. And if we've made it this far, we've really been graced by God to make such progress. Once into the fourth mansions, there are much fewer poisonous creatures to contend with, and those that are present are actually occasions of spiritual gain as their temptations can help us to better discern spiritual delights. And of course, resisting temptations gains merit for us. What's most important in the first book of this chapter, though, is that Saint Teresa here makes the distinction promised in the last section between sweetness and prayer and spiritual consolation. It appears to me that what we acquire for ourselves in meditation and petitions to our Lord may be termed sweetness in devotion. It is natural, although ultimately aided by the grace of God. I must be understood to imply this in all I say, for we can do nothing without him. This sweetness arises principally from the good work we perform. It appears to result from our labors. Well, may we feel happy at having thus spent our time. We shall find on consideration that many temporal matters give us the same pleasure, such as unexpectedly coming into a large fortune, suddenly meeting with the dearly loved friend or succeeding in any important or influential affair which makes a sensation in the world. I consider both these joys and those we feel in religious matters to be natural ones. So, sweetness and prayer refers to those experiences, my friends, that we ourselves acquire through our own meditation and petitions to the Lord. Those that proceed from our own nature, although God does have a hand in them, they arise from the virtuous work itself that we perform. It seems that we have earned them through our own effort and we are consoled for having engaged in such works. But these are natural and very much like the feelings we experience when good things happen to us in our natural lives. So, St. Teresa says that they begin in ourselves and end in God. Spiritual constellations on the contrary arise from God and then our nature feels them and rejoices as keenly in them and indeed far more keenly than in the others I described. Moreover, whereas sweetness and prayer constrains or narrows the heart a little bit, spiritual constellations dilate or expand the heart. Souls in the third mansions often experience sweetness and prayer because they're using their understanding and reason to engage in meditation and prayer and these bring on devout feelings. So, Teresa says that these souls should engage in acts of love to praise and thank God. They should desire God to be honored and glorified because doing this helps to inflame the will. Teresa famously says at this point that to make rapid progress and to reach the mansions we wish to enter it is not so essential to think much as to love much. And she goes on to say that love does not consist in great sweetness of devotion but in a fervent determination to strive to please God in all things in avoiding as far as possible all that would offend him and in praying for the increase of the glory and honor of his son and for the growth of the Catholic Church. Now there's some very good food for thought here about the nature of love. Specifically love is not so much a feeling or an emotion. It's an act of the will. Love is a choice that we make and when it comes to loving God we have to strive to please him in all things and to avoid whatever offends him. In other words we have to strive to obey God's commandments in order to truly love God. Now think of the words John's first epistle chapter 2. The way we may be sure that we know him is to keep his commandments. Whoever says I know him but does not keep his commandments as a liar and the truth is not in him but whoever keeps his word the love of God is truly perfected in him. This is the way we may know that we are in union with him. Then again in the fifth chapter of 1 John we read for the love of God is this that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome. The point is that we cannot say that we really love God if we are not striving to live according to his commandments which are embodied for us in the teachings of his one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. And contrary to the thinking of many God's commandments are not burdensome because following them actually gives us joy and peace. Not to mention that following God's commandments also prepares us for eternal union with him. So if we think we are a lover of God it's important that we really examine ourselves with regard to how we keep his commandments. Do we strive with all our might to live as the church bids us or do we follow the church's teachings begrudgingly? Do we ever wantonly disregard the commandments in order to satisfy our own selfish desires? St. Teresa next takes up a very practical discussion of distractions in prayer something that has troubled her deeply for many years and that she mentions both in the book of her life and in the way of perfection. But now that she is writing her most mature work she has come to understand the difference between the imagination what she refers to as one's thoughts and the intellect or understanding which is a power or faculty of the soul. She says it is possible that the powers of the soul can be occupied with God while the imagination is simultaneously distracted and off wandering somewhere. The issue is that we cannot stop the movement of our minds any less than we can stop the movement of the heavens. And she says that we err in thinking that we need only know that we must keep our thoughts fixed on God. The problem is that most people simply don't understand themselves well enough and are tempted to abandon prayer when they feel they cannot settle their minds. And so Teresa writes, we do not understand that we should consult those better instructed than ourselves nor are we aware that there is anything for us to learn. We pass through terrible trials on account of not understanding our own nature and take what is not merely harmless but good for a grave fault. This causes the sufferings felt by many people particularly by the unlearned who practice prayer. They complain of interior trials become melancholy lose their health and even give up prayer altogether for want of recognizing that we have within ourselves as it were an interior world. We cannot stop the revolution of the heavens as they rush with velocity upon their course. Neither can we control our imagination. When this wanders we at once imagine that all the powers of the soul follow it. We think everything is lost and that the time spent in God's presence is wasted. Meanwhile the soul is perhaps entirely united to him in the innermost mansions while the imagination is in the precincts of the castle struggling with a thousand wild and venomous creatures and gaining merit by its warfare. Therefore we need not let ourselves be disturbed nor give up prayer as the devil is striving to persuade us as the rule all our anxieties and troubles come from misunderstanding our own nature. Wow it's a lot to take in but it gives us some good food for thought when we get distracted in prayer. Now Teresa goes on and she believes that the instability and rebellion of the imagination is a consequence of the disorder produced through original sin. While she doesn't understand how the soul can be recollected in God while the imagination is running wild she does know that this happens and recognizing that we'll always have to deal with our imagination we have to be patient with ourselves and endure the suffering out of love. She writes, we should not be distressed by reason of our thoughts nor allow ourselves to be worried by them if they come from the devil he will let us alone if we take no notice of them and if they are as often happens one of the many frailties entailed by Adam's sin let us be patient and suffer them for the love of God and this is very good advice my friends because it's so easy for us to get distracted and to think that our prayer is a waste of time. Teresa believes these interior battles are much worse and harder to deal with than any of the sufferings life may bring us so it's important that we keep striving to move through the castle to the end most part where we can find peace. As she writes about distraction the thing is inevitable therefore do not let it disturb or grieve you but let the mill clack on while we grind our wheat that is let us continue to work with our will and intellect. So in summary, St. Teresa says we must never abandon our prayer because of distractions or even let the distractions bother us for they don't hinder our prayer when our souls are suspended in prayer. Ultimately, St. Teresa recognizes that we suffer when we realize the greatest obstacle to resting with God is within us. We are the problem and the only answer is to persevere in prayer. She also says that we must try to understand ourselves and not blame our souls for the defects of our imagination and human nature and the interference of the devil. This perseverance and understanding of oneself is absolutely necessary for moving on to the innermost mansions and that brings us to the end of day seven in our study of the interior castle. Thank you so much for listening. Next time we're going to continue our look at the fourth mansions and now let's pray together St. Teresa's prayer. 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. 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.