 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. Tan commentaries.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 to The Commentaries series on St. Teresa of Avala's interior castle. I'm Father Timothy Reed and I'm delighted to be with you once again. Today is day 17. Last time we finally wrapped up our study on the six mansions and now we are ready to enter the seventh and final mansions which are the most interior part of the interior castle. So let's jump right in. Now as we enter into these final mansions, St. Teresa is at a bit of a loss for words and she believes herself to be unworthy of understanding what actually happens here. Now listen to the first three sentences of chapter one. She writes, you may think sisters that so much has been said of this spiritual journey that nothing remains to be added. That would be a great mistake. God's immensity has no limits, neither have his works. Therefore who can recount his mercies and his greatness? It is impossible. So do not be amazed at what I write about them which is but a cipher of what remains untold concerning God. So after all the amazing spiritual phenomenon that we encounter in the six mansions, it may be hard to believe that there's more. But do we ever really ponder God's immensity? Do we ever ponder his omniscience and omnipotence? How often do we try to put God in a box of our own making and then become upset with him when he doesn't behave as we think he should? While we can all understand intellectually that God is infinite and beyond man's capacity to apprehend him, we will come to a much greater understanding of God's ineffability. As we grow in holiness, as we grow in prayer, and thereby grow closer to him. Now furthermore, most of us fail to understand the greatness of our souls which have been made for eternal union with God. And St. Teresa believes that we fail to understand the deep secrets hidden within our souls because we do not value them as creatures made in God's image. She writes of the soul in paragraph six. You must not think of the soul as insignificant and petty, but as an interior world containing the number of beautiful mansions you have seen. As indeed it should, since in the center of the soul there is a mansion reserved for God himself. Yet the more we come to know about how God communicates to his creatures, the more we will praise him and desire to know the true value of souls. And so this is why before she begins to discuss the seventh mansions, St. Teresa entreats her sisters not to impede the Lord's work of bringing their souls to spiritual marriage because of the great blessings the spiritual marriage will give to the soul. And so from here St. Teresa discusses our Lord's presence in the very center of our souls and she writes in paragraph three. When our Lord is pleased to take pity on the sufferings, both past and present, endure through her longing for him by the soul which he has spiritually taken for his bride, he, before consummating the celestial marriage, brings her into this, his mansion or presence chamber. This is the seventh mansion for as he has a dwelling place in heaven, so has he in the soul where none but he may abide and which may be termed a second heaven. Now once again here St. Teresa takes the time to talk about souls in mortal sin which are incapable of receiving the light of God and who are she says imprisoned in a gloomy dungeon, chained hand and foot, unable to perform any meritorious action, she says they are also both blind and dumb. Now truly the best thing that we can do for these souls is to pray for them. Now for those souls in a state of grace though who are granted the divine nuptials of the seventh mansions, the union granted here is different from the unions of the fifth and sixth mansions where there was great delight in the union but no understanding. Here in the seventh mansions the soul sees and understands the union as if scales have fallen from its eyes. Now St. Teresa also gives us a very quick primer on Trinitarian theology she writes, by some mysterious manifestation of the truth, the three persons of the most blessed trinity reveal themselves preceded by an illumination which shines on the spirit like a most dazzling cloud of light. The three persons are distinct from one another, a sublime knowledge is infused into the soul imbuing it with a certainty of the truth that the three are of one substance power and knowledge and are one God. Thus that which we hold as a doctrine of faith, the soul now, so to speak, understands by sight, though it beholds the blessed trinity neither by the eyes of the body nor of the soul, this being no imaginary vision. All the three persons here communicate themselves to the soul, speak to it and make it understand the words of our Lord in the gospel that he and the Father and the Holy Ghost will come and make their abode with the soul which loves him and keeps his commandments. Now this knowledge that she now has of the working of the trinity leads St. Teresa to exclaim in paragraph 10, oh my God, how different from merely hearing and believing these words is it to realize their truth in this way. Day by day a growing astonishment takes possession of this soul for the three persons of the blessed trinity seem never to depart. It sees with certainty in the way I have described that they dwell far within its own center and depths, though for want of learning I cannot describe how it is conscious of the indwelling of these divine companions. Now, very interestingly, rather than being completely inebriated and sort of lost in the clouds, the soul in the seventh mansion is far more active than before in all the concerns God's service. And the soul is even more attentive to not offending God in any way. Now experiencing the trinity in this way seems to prepare the soul for even more and this leads us into chapter 2. Now in chapter 2, St. Teresa is ready to discuss the distinctions between spiritual betrothal and spiritual marriage and she mentions at the outset of chapter 2 that spiritual marriage or spiritual nuptials does not reach its perfect fullness here on earth and that it can be lost if we withdraw from God. So in short, spiritual betrothal or the spiritual espousal passes quickly while spiritual marriages is so complete a union that the soul becomes one with God. And she uses in paragraph 5 a couple of analogies to describe this. So spiritual betrothal is like the joining of two candle flames. They can be put together to create one flame but they can just as easily be drawn apart again. Spiritual marriage is more like rain that falls into a river or like a stream that merges into the ocean. The waters come together and they cannot be separated. The first time a soul receives the gift of spiritual marriage, Teresa says that our Lord shows himself to the soul through an imaginative vision of his sacred humanity. Now this in itself was not new to Teresa but the experience frightened her because the vision came with great force and because of the words he spoke to her. And St. Teresa stresses that there is a great difference between all previous visions and those that occur in the seventh mansions. In these mansions, there is very little thought of the body because spiritual marriage takes place in the very interior of the soul where God himself is. And she says that here where God is, he has no need of a door to enter through. And so all other experiences of him seem to come through one's senses and faculties. But here, there's a real union of the person with Jesus. Looking for scriptural expression of this experience of spiritual marriage, Teresa turns to St. Paul quoting his first letter to the Corinthians and his letter to the Philippians. She writes in paragraph 6, Perhaps when St. Paul said, He who was joined to the Lord is one spirit, he meant this sovereign marriage, which presupposes his majesties having been joined to the soul by union. The same apostle says to me to live as Christ and to die as gang. This I think might here be uttered by the soul. For now the little butterfly of which I spoke dies with supreme joy. For Christ is her life. She goes on. The soul learns that it is God who gives it life by certain secret intuitions too strong to be misunderstood and keenly felt although impossible to describe. These produce such over mastering feelings that the person experiencing them cannot refrain from amorous exclamation such as oh life of my life and power which doth uphold me and with other aspirations of the same kind. Truly, the soul is fully in love at this point completely enamored with God. As we empty ourselves of all that belongs to creatures, God fills us with himself. Curiously, even at this, the culmination of the spiritual life, the soul is not confident of salvation and knows it can still fall away from God. In fact, it is even more fearful of offending God and takes even greater care not to do so. And yet the soul is at peace here. Even amidst whatever crosses it must bear, even if its power, sense and some passions are not at peace. So Saint Teresa is now discussing the very apex of the spiritual life. And amazingly, even at the very heights of holiness that man can attain, there is no assurance, no absolute assurance of salvation but only at greater care not to offend God. How different Saint Teresa is from those who blithely presume upon their salvation, who give no thought to the possibility of eternal damnation. And thus Teresa shows us that the struggle to be holy never ends as long as we live on this earth. Truly, we must consciously strive to stay on and make it up the steep and narrow path that alone leads to heaven. Well that, my friends, completes our podcast for day 17. Thank you so much for listening and join us tomorrow as we continue working our way through the seventh mansions. Until then, let us pray with Saint 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 Saint Teresa intercede for you. Other great free content from Tan. Visit tancommentaries.com to subscribe and use coupon code C-O-M-25 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.