 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. 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 to The Commentaries series on St. Teresa of Avila's Magnus Opus, The Interior Castle. This is day five and I am Father Timothy Reed. I'm a secular Carmelite in Charlotte, North Carolina. Last time we walked through the second mansions of The Interior Castle and today we look at the first of two chapters dealing with the third mansions of The Interior Castle. In the first two mansions we were looking at souls who are in what we call the Purgative Way. As was noted in the introduction of the book, mystical theology is generally divided into three parts, respectively called the Purgative, the Illuminative, and the Unitive Life. In the first, man is cleansed from sin and habitual imperfection by the use of the sacraments and by voluntary mortification of the passions. The mind is purified by sedulous meditation on the last end and on the life and passion of Christ, which must ever be the great model of the Christian. This first portion of The Way to Heaven can be covered by the help of the ordinary means of grace without any direct and extraordinary intervention of divine power. Now as we move into the third mansions we're dealing with souls who have moved out of the purgative life into the Illuminative Life. As the introduction notes, the Illuminative Life comprises the passive purification of the soul and the passive enlightenment of the mind by sending it keen interior and exterior trials and sufferings, God completes the cleansing of the soul in a manner far surpassing any voluntary effort of man. So in other words, it's here that God begins working in the soul directly. And one of the ways he works in the soul directly is through aridity and prayer, the taking away of the constellations that we often experience when we first start praying. The introduction goes on. By raising the soul to the stage of contemplation, he gives it fresh light on the mysteries of our redemption. The mind is then no longer compelled to strain the memory, the reason and the will, in order to dwell upon the great truths of religion and to derive some personal benefit therefrom. For these truths are now more or less permanently before it and fill it with holy thoughts, sometimes giving it consolation and trouble and other times striking a warning note against imperfection. Now just a note here. In speaking of contemplation, we must understand that this is divinely infused prayer, prayer that God does within us. And it is to be distinguished from simple mental prayer meditation in which we are the principal actor. The introduction goes on. Again, the subtraction of sensible consolation and the interior aridity arising therefrom leave a terrible blank in the soul, showing it that without God's help it is mere nothingness. This apparent estrangement from God is the keenest trial that can befall a soul, but also the most powerful means of cleansing it from the least, the most subtle imperfections. So as souls move through the third and into the fourth mansions, we see these people moving away from the period in which their progress is largely dependent upon their own efforts, into the point of the spiritual life in which God really begins to sanctify them by working directly upon their soul. And we are moving toward the period of aridity in prayer known in the language of Saint John of the Cross as the first dark night of the soul or the dark night of the senses. So truly if you make it into the third mansions, you're making some real progress in the spiritual life. Indeed, St. Teresa says at the very beginning of this chapter that the soul who makes it into the third mansions is blessed, because if they persevere and do not turn back, they are on a safe road toward salvation, although she does recognize that we can never be totally secure in this life. No matter how far along we are in the spiritual life, we can always fall away. And this is exactly why we have to strive with all our might to win the spiritual battles of the second mansions and move forward. Now in this chapter, St. Teresa likens life here on earth to being like men whose enemies are at the door who must not lay aside their arms even while sleeping or eating and are always in dread lest the foes should enter the fortress by some breach in the walls. Now it seems like she's laying it on pretty thick, but she wants us to understand the real miseries of this life, especially if our earthly life is not spent in service of our Lord. These real miseries are failing to be virtuous and failing to accept our Lord's gift of salvation. And for this reason she says that we ought to ask our Lord as our boon to grant us one day to dwell in safety with the saints. So our saint is telling us here that we need to keep heaven ever before our eyes and we need to have a real fear of damn nation. She knows all too well how precarious man's holiness can be. And she knows how terribly the devil can assault us. This is why she says we must always be on guard against offending our Lord. I mean even at her level of holiness, Teresa feared that she had lived her life badly. And so she asks her readers to pray that God will grant her mercy. And certainly she trusts wholeheartedly in God's mercy and grace because she writes, His Majesty knows that I have nothing to rely upon but His mercy. As I cannot counsel the past, I have no other remedy but to flee to Him and to confide in the merits of His Son and of His Virgin Mother, whose habit, unworthy as I am, I wear. But even with God's mercy, with Mary as a patroness and with the security that comes from living in an enclosure such as Carmel and living a life of penance, Saint Teresa encourages her sisters not to quit fearing. She says blessed is he who fears the Lord. And why is this? It's because the fear of the Lord is a gift of the Holy Spirit. It's not a servile or faithless fear like the fear a slave has for a tyrannical master. The fear of the Lord is like the love and respect that a child has for his father. It's a reverential love and respect that recognizes the absolute authority and omnipotence of the Lord. The fear of the Lord keeps us mindful of the fact that hell and eternal punishment are the price we pay for turning away from the all-powerful Lord. But it also keeps us mindful of the fact that there is no sin of ours that God cannot forgive. So let's not fail to take Saint Teresa's admonitions to heart. Now returning to a discussion of those in the third mansions, Saint Teresa again speaks of how they have received a great blessing from the Lord by making it here. And she believes there are many souls in the world in these mansions. It is both perseverance on the part of the person as well as the mercy of God that have brought a soul to this stage. She describes people here as people who long not to offend our Lord, even guarding themselves against venial sins. She says they are fond of penance and prayer. They spend their time well practicing works of mercy. They are modest, imprudent in speech and manner of dress, and they govern their households well. Most importantly, the Saint makes the assertion, there appears no reason to forbid their entrance to the last mansions. Nor will our Lord deny it them if they desire it, for this is the right disposition for receiving all his favors. Simple desire is not enough though. Like the rich young man who desired to enter the kingdom of heaven, but who was unwilling to sacrifice his riches, we must do more than simply desire to make it to the final mansions. There has to be a willingness in us to suffer. In a sense, she says that we must merit to enter the final mansions realizing that we never really deserve God's favor. And as she writes, let it suffice that you are God's servants. Do not pursue so much as to catch nothing. Think of the saints who have entered into the divine presence and you will see the difference between them and ourselves. Do not ask for what you do not deserve, nor should we ever think however much we may have done for God that we merit the reward of the saints, for we have offended him. And so this, my friends, is why we must humbly strive for holiness and we must learn to love our Lord through works of charity. As Teresa says, For he must proportion the reward to our love for him. This love, my daughters, must not be the fabric of our imagination. We must prove it by our works. Now doing all this requires the determination of our wills. It requires complete detachment from all worldly things and that we consider ourselves useless servants. It requires, my friends, that we be willing to suffer through dryness in our prayer. And in this way, St. Teresa is telling us of the importance of humility. She says that we should consider ourselves lucky to be able to repay our Lord for some of the goodness He has shown us. And we should not ask for favors. At the end of this chapter, St. Teresa invites her daughters to reflect on what she has written, telling them that the Lord will draw humility out of their dryness. She writes, I believe that where true humility exists, although God should never bestow consolations, yet He gives a peace and resignation which make the soul happier than our others with sensible devotion. So with that in mind, we shouldn't seek out consolations from God in prayer. Rather, we have to learn to be content with dryness and aridity, rather than loving consolations more than the cross. Now, while souls who have entered the Third Mansions have advanced well in the spiritual life and are living very good lives, there's still much to do. Great vigilance and effort are necessary on our part. While St. Teresa did tell us that there's no reason that those of us who have entered into the Third Mansions cannot make it into the very final Mansions, we cannot rest. Even here at the beginning of the Third Mansions, as we're moving from the purgative way to the illuminative way, we still have to apply great effort to advance in the spiritual life. And remember, at the heart of our efforts at this stage is the gift of the Holy Spirit, known as fear of the Lord. Again, this is not a servile fear, but rather a filial fear that is expressed in a love for God in His commandments and a true desire not to offend Him in any way. The fear of the Lord helps us to see God as He truly is, and the fear of the Lord is expressed in our humble realization of the depths of our own human sinfulness and our recognition of how easily we can fall. So this is what we must ask ourselves. Do I truly fear the Lord? Do I fear hell and damnation? Do I realize just how awful my sins are, even my venial sins? And am I willing to love and serve God, even if I am not receiving any consolations and prayer? If we make it into these Mansions, my friends, we must persevere in our zeal for the Lord and in overcoming our own faults and failings. We must seek to give ourselves to the Lord unreservedly, trusting Him completely, even though He may not be giving us consolations and prayer. And lastly, as we move into the stage, we must also entrust ourselves wholeheartedly to our Lady and to the Saints, looking to them as guides and models of how to advance in the spiritual life. That completes our podcast for today. Stay tuned next time as we continue making our way through the Third Mansions. 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. Amen. May God bless you and may St. Teresa intercede for you. 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.