Let me open this Series and begin with one of the most popular and influential female Saints of the Catholic Church. Who would have thought that this Spanish nun, who was such a great Contemplative and a most gifted Mystic, was somehow a worldling during a certain period in her youth and early years in the convent?
Teresa of Avila: Sinner to Saint
Saint Teresa’s childhood
As a child, she was religious and prayerful, conformed to the examples of her wealthy parents, Alonso Sánchez de Cepeda and Beatriz de Ahumada y Cuevas, who were, in her own words, “devout” and “very good.” Sadly, her mother died when she was only about twelve. In her grief and despair, she turned to and asked the Blessed Virgin to become her mother. She believed that Our Lady favorably responded to her prayer in that moment and ever since.
Teresa’s sins in her earlier years
Soon, however, in her teenage years, her zealous piety partially dulled, as she became concerned with worldly things. She paid attention to vanities, such as clothes and ornaments, wishing to please others with her appearance. “I took pains with my hands and my hair, used perfumes, and all vanities within my reach—and they were many, for I was very much given to them,” she said in her autobiography, The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus.
At the same time, she took much delight in the company of her cousins and friends, gossiped with them, and got their help in all the amusements she liked. The friendly and sociable Teresa was naturally adept in talking with people, which she really enjoyed. She said, “In everything that gave them pleasure, I kept the conversation alive—listened to the stories of their affections and childish follies, good for nothing.” While in modern times, antics, amusements and vanities are considered ‘fun’ or ‘harmless’ to talk about with friends, Saint Teresa realized later in her life that they did her harm. She recalled, “In the beginning, these conversations did me harm–I believe so.” They taught her many evils, away from virtues, that “no trace was left of [her] soul’s natural disposition to virtue.” She also felt bad that her conversations of folly with friends, which would seem ‘fine’ in our present standards, changed her as a person; that she “became a reflection of her [friend] and of another who was given to the same kind of amusements.” She reflected, “Now and then, I am amazed at the evil one bad companion can do—nor could I believe it if I did not know it by experience—especially when we are young: then is it that the evil must be greatest.”
Deliverance from sins
Saint Teresa recalled how the Good Lord gave her the grace to sever her unholy friendships and to go back to her good old habits of virtues, especially with the help of her immediate family members. Teresa’s father, Don Alonso, greatly concerned for her daughter’s changing personality, took her to the Augustinian Monastery of Our Lady of Grace, which was founded in 1509 by the Venerable Fray Juan of Seville. Initially, it was against Teresa’s will, for she did not wish to become a nun. Still, she saw her time at the monastery as a means of God to save her from her sins like acting with vanity, engaging in talks with friends that lacked good sense and being drawn to amusements. Acknowledging the Lord, she said, “God delivered me out of it all, so that I should not be lost…” Why did she say that if she only committed just venial sins? That’s because while those friendships and amusements did not cause her to commit a mortal sin, they became a hindrance to holiness, placing her near the occasion of sin and causing great distress to her soul.
Perhaps many people find that avoiding venial sins and trying to get away from no-good friendships are not easy to do. As Saint Teresa said of her experience, “Yet, for all this, the devil did not cease to tempt me; and people in the world sought means to trouble my rest with messages and presents.” Temptation followed her, though soon it stopped because the monastery could not allow such visits from the outside. And that helped Teresa to practice a more virtuous life once more, like she did as a very young girl; this time, in the company of nuns.
Saint Teresa’s realization
Teresa had been staying at the Augustinian Monastery for one year and a half, until a serious illness struck her, prompting her family to take her back to their father’s house. After she recovered, and encouraged by conversations on God with her Uncle Pedro Sánchez de Cepeda who was a very pious man and the good books he shared with her, Teresa “came to understand the truth… that all things are as nothing, the world vanity, and passing rapidly away.” And in reading the Epistles of St. Jerome, Teresa finally realized with firm resolve what she wanted in life—to become a nun!
Becoming a Carmelite
Don Alonso, quite unexpectedly, would not give his consent to his daughter’s decision. The Saint related that it was because of his “great love” for her. But Teresa knew that her vocation was for her own spiritual sake; “I now began to be afraid of myself, and of my own weakness—for I might go back,” she said. So in secret, she entered the Carmelite Order, in the Monastery of the Incarnation, situated outside the town of Avila. She made her profession of vows a year later. However, her illness soon recurred, prompting her father to get her out of the convent again. Teresa suffered much pain that at one point it seemed she would not recover. Fortunately, her physical health gradually improved, and her spiritual health likewise strengthened as she discovered a love for mental prayer. Three years later, Teresa re-entered the convent. From there, this native of Avila, Spain went from being a passionate Carmelite nun to a great Mystic to one of the most influential Saints and Doctors of the Church.
Carmelite reform, convents, and spiritual writings
While this piece seeks to focus on the temptations and sins that Saint Teresa had to overcome before she reached the peak of full spiritual conversion, it is worthy to mention that Saint Teresa of Avila made so many valuable contributions to the Church, such as these — the Carmelite Reform that she originated to restore and emphasize the austere, contemplative and primitive Carmelite life, which relaxed in her time and a century before that; the “Convent of St. Joseph,” named after and dedicated to San José, her Patron Saint, and sixteen more convents she established throughout Spain despite her weak health and great difficulties; and her writings, such as, “The Way of Perfection” and “The Interior Castle,” which up to now are among the most read of the spiritual masterpieces.
Saint Teresa’s thoughts on her sins
As mentioned earlier, Saint Teresa, in her writings, regretted wasting so much of her time on socializing and entertaining herself and her friends. It’s probably why she wrote this prayer to redeem the lost time. And it’s also why holiness was her only reason for maintaining close friendships later in life. Her closest friends were unworldly nuns and priests, including the great Saint John of the Cross (John of Avila).
Seeing the good nuns at the Augustinian monastery, which was a first for her, she realized how she “looked more to the pleasure of sense and vanity than to the good of [her] soul.” In fact, she suffered much in her first week there not just because of being in a monastery, but “more from the suspicion that [her] vanity was known.” Then, in the Carmelite convent, Teresa also said that she “delighted in being well thought of by others,” thinking that it was a virtue to do things that appear virtuous. Her sin of vanity was not only about her looks, but also about being too concerned of her ‘image’ in the eyes of others. She said, “I was so vain—I knew how to procure respect for myself by doing those things which in the world are usually regarded with respect.”
For a time in the convent, Saint Teresa had not been praying as devoutly as she ought, which made her feel that her efforts to act virtuously were deceiving, a mere “outward show of goodness.” She also warned about how one’s prayer life would suffer and degrade as a consequence of habitually giving in to sins, whether venial or grave:
“So, then, going on from pastime to pastime, from vanity to vanity, from one occasion of sin to another, I began to expose myself exceedingly to the very greatest dangers: my soul was so distracted by many vanities, that I was ashamed to draw near unto God in an act of such special friendship as that of prayer. As my sins multiplied, I began to lose the pleasure and comfort I had in virtuous things: and that loss contributed to the abandonment of prayer.”
Temptations and sins among religious persons of her time
Upon her return to the Carmelite convent after three years of recovering from her illness, Teresa soon became popular, as expected, because of her wit, charming beauty and extroverted personality. Back in those days in Spain, young nuns were accustomed to receiving guests in the convent parlor. Teresa did have many visitors, which the convent encouraged supposedly to teach them about mental prayer. However, instead of doing that, she spent much time there to chat with friends. At first, she thought it posed no danger, except for probable waste of time. She said, “When I began to indulge in these conversations, I did not think, seeing they were [common practice], that my soul must be injured and dissipated…” But she later realized that such custom of allowing outsiders into the convent was dangerous to the soul. In her case, it was during that period when she stopped her good habit of mental prayer because of her distracting socialization with visitors. And also because she considered her weak body to be an excuse—which should not be used as an excuse for not praying as she later noted. Realizing all that, Saint Teresa discontinued those amusing talks and pleasurable socialization. She resumed mental prayer and was able to practice much higher forms of prayer since then.
Saint Teresa wrote that being in a monastery that was not enclosed did her much harm; and she believed that it was very dangerous for other nuns, too. According to her, the problem was not just the physical openness, but also the laxity of many religious houses of allowing “honours and amusements of the world” inside their premises. Teresa felt much pity and concern for the religious men and women in those monasteries that offered “two roads,” either “road of virtue and religious observance” or “road of inobservance.” On account of human’s concupiscence and sinfulness, the road of less virtue and inobservance was the one more frequented, as St. Teresa observed. As a result, many of the religious persons in those monasteries struggled with an ill-understanding of the obligations of their state of life because the temptations and sins of following ways of worldliness were present.
My Reflection
The narrative I wrote above offers a closer look into the life of Saint Teresa of Avila in a different way. When detailing about her, we tend to focus on her great works and mysticism, which many of us already admire about her. But today, I’m focusing on her personal example of purifying oneself from worldliness for the good of one’s soul—and we must all go through it if we truly desire to become saints from being sinners.
Spiritual blindness
The ‘venial’ sins Teresa committed, the things she found pleasurable, and the kind of friends she kept in earlier life and their frivolous talks are all considered ‘innocent’ by modern standards. But in the standards of God, they do not seem to be that innocent. It is sad that some people who identify themselves as ‘faithful’ Catholics find vanities, gossips, worldly amusements and other forms of secularism acceptable or tolerable. They say they follow Our Lord yet they confuse the folly as holy—they have become spiritually blind.
Saint Teresa realized that there are many things that we say, do, and think of that are not mortally sinful or grievously wrong, but are hindrances to holiness. Eventually, habitual venial sins can do harm and lead to grave ones, like how a person’s physical vanity can grow into sin of pride in themselves or cause sin of envy to those around them. What we have as Catholics is a moral compass, formed from the Word of God, to point to us the right direction in life. Use it sensibly; don’t get lost in this world.
Unhealthy attachments
When we hear about “unhealthy attachments,” it’s the material things that first come to mind. But we are forgetting that aside from those things, these unhealthy attachments are also who—persons, our fellow mere creatures of God. We’re forgetting that we could have “unhealthy attachments” to toxic persons, too.
Some people get unhealthily attached to toxic persons even they very well know of the toxic persons’ obvious sinfulness, indifference and callousness. They give all sorts of personal excuses not to sever their friendships or relationships with their toxic friends or significant others. Sometimes, a reason they give is that these toxic persons are an amusing company for doing fun things. At times, they use some personal benefit they get from the toxic persons as their excuse.
But whatever amusement or benefit a person gets from these unhealthy friendships and relationships, the bad always outweighs the ‘good’ in these toxic persons. From putting them to near occasions of sin, to influencing them to becoming worldly, materialistic and sinful, and making them an unholy mirror image of the toxic person, whether internally or externally, the toxic persons are a spiritual ‘cancer’ to their overall emotional, mental and spiritual well-being, which makes their friendships or relationships with them displeasing and offensive to God.
I met people who are suffering from having unhealthy attachments to toxic persons. Many times, I found it weird why they keep such unhealthy attachments to toxic persons, when oftentimes, these toxic ‘friends’ are outright callous and unkind even toward them. Perhaps, it’s because of whatever benefit they get from the toxic persons, which again, I believe, in just a lame excuse. But more than that, to me, their unhealthy attachment is driven by the absence of the Holy Spirit in their lives; that something demonic is at play, which are called “unholy spiritual ties,” a familiar term to those who are knowledgeable in Spiritual Warfare, like I am.
Saint Teresa inspires us to have the same courage and resolve that she had to cut off unhealthy attachments with toxic person in our lives that are holding us back from advancing in virtue, in order for us to imitate Jesus Christ and the Blessed Mother.
“Outward show of goodness”
As narrated earlier, Teresa desired for others to think of her so well. Of course, it’s not wrong to want others to see how pious and religious we are as Catholics. But for Teresa, she did not like it that people thought too well of her and her actions, which made the convent too relaxed on her: “I read much, spoke of God,… liked to have His image painted in many places, to have an oratory of my own, and furnish it with objects of devotion,… I spoke ill of no one, and other things of the same kind in me which have the appearance of virtue.”
Saint Teresa said that there was a time when she actually had ceased to pray. But those around her mistakenly thought that she was still ‘holy.’ She said, “I had been a year and more without praying…” She felt unhappy for thinking that she “deceived” those people who continued to see her as devout when she actually had not prayed for a long period of time.
What does this part of Saint Teresa’s story teach us? Our motivation for holiness must be sincere at all times. Jesus Himself, in His sermon (Matthew 6:1-8, 16-18), warned us against “doing good in order to be seen.” It’s also important that our outward religious practices are founded on genuine inward goodness. Thus, a person who serves in the Church is seen well and praised by their peers. But if charity is not the real driving force in their lives, compassion toward other people, especially the poor, is absent, and their prayer life is left dry, then their service is not pleasing in the eyes of God.
Distractions of socialization
Saint Teresa openly regretted wasting so much time in socializing for amusement of various sorts, and repeatedly talked about the dangers of engaging in certain friendships and frivolous conversations on one’s spiritual practice.
Social media
The cautionary words of Saint Teresa of Avila on “friendship” is more relevant than ever with its modern form—the social media! Many people waste the precious time in checking their social media all the time. There has never been a time that I have not seen a soul check the social media, and Facebook, in particular-in the streets, even while walking, at a fast food or restaurant, while eating, and often, even in the Church during the Mass. Yet they say, they do not have the time for a 20-minute 5 decade-prayer of the Rosary… I believe that it could take at least an hour or so to mindlessly scroll through all the chatter on Facebook. What more if they were to ‘Like’ and react to those who blabber their thoughts there.
Some people barely have decent time for God. But when it comes to their friends and families, they always have much time to spare. Perhaps it’s more ‘interesting’ to them to check on their FB Friends, or catch up on what’s trending, than to converse with God and our spiritual friends in Heaven in prayer. Social media can easily become a distraction; and wasting much of our time on social media is clearly not in accord with God’s will. Nowadays, people often misuse it as a source of worldly amusements and pleasures. So keep in mind Saint Teresa’s warning that worldliness and vanities of all sorts, which plague the social media, diminish and undermine our spiritual life, such as the dedication to pray.
Church group events
We must also be careful not to confuse the use of socialization for spiritual growth. This was apparent in Saint Teresa’s earlier years in the Carmelite convent wherein, as mentioned, she received many visitors to supposedly teach them about prayer. Instead, it became a venue for entertainment, chatting, and flattery. She used the time more for herself and the people, and focused less on prayer.
Presently, a modern form of it in Catholic parishes are church group meetups like Young Adult Group gatherings. A common favorite purpose is to do “Adoration Night” as a group. They then conclude it with a fun night of eating out or potluck dinner. Either activities are fine by themselves. Promoting the practice of Adoration and organizing social gatherings are both good initiatives. But I think, to squeeze both in, in one night, on a regular basis, and not just for a particularly special reason, could confuse their real purpose—especially that of Adoration.
For one, I consider Adoration as a truly intimate moment with God. So I wonder how one could fully concentrate before the Blessed Sacrament during group Adoration Nights, knowing that all their friends are right around them inside the Adoration Chapel, and thinking about whether the attendance for the night would be complete or if the food afterward would be enough, and other concerns. But the more critical question should be, is Adoration just a nice ‘Catholic excuse’ to meet up? Personally, I encountered people who regularly went to such Adoration Nights and other gatherings mainly to socialize. In truth, to be in God’s presence or to talk about God was just their secondary goal.
Still, I believe that there are those in young adult groups and other church circles who have the sincerity to serve and know God deeper. But worldliness could just as easily creep in within these groups through less devout members. That’s why, like Saint Teresa did, those who take part in these must think carefully whether they come together as a ‘community of faithful Catholics gathered in the Name of Jesus’ or as a ‘group of worldly Catholics gathered on a night of prayer with lots of fun and chitter-chatter.’ The life of Saint Teresa is a great help in discerning between the two.
Virtue among the religious
Centuries ago, Saint Teresa felt disturbed that “honours and amusements of the world” were allowed among the religious. I think her great concern then is even more relevant now that modernity is everywhere.
Back to the topic on social media, what disturbs me is the heavy presence in Facebook of some priests that post three to five times a day. At times, it almost feels like they are giving their friends and community a Live Feed of what they’re up to and where they are. Live Feeds are a staple during the Academy Awards or the Oscars or an Apple’s Keynote. But constant posts from our priests? What’s more is that their posts are not limited to Church teachings or pastoral matters. Such priests also ‘share’ posts on comedies, material things, and other sorts of worldly articles and nonreligious photos they found somewhere in Facebook. They also ‘Like’ and even ‘Comment’ on photos and posts of worldly nature. All these secular actions are sad to see among priests whose vocation is to lead their flock to salvation and pray for those who are suffering. Religious persons should be serve as examples to the faithful on how to pursue holiness and fight the worldliness.
As Saint Teresa pointed out back in her day, it’s no wonder “the Church is in so much trouble, when we see those, who ought to be an example of every virtue to others, so disfigure the work which the spirit of the Saints departed wrought in their Orders.” In writing about this, I seek to remind everyone to keep praying for our priests and all the religious persons. May God help them remain faithful to their vows, shelter them from the temptations of this world, and lead them along the “road of virtue and religious observance.” Here is a piece I wrote about Praying for Priests. Let me echo what Saint Teresa prayed,
“May it please His Divine Majesty to apply a remedy to this, as He sees it to be needful! Amen.”
***
Most of us faithful can relate to Saint Teresa—we are torn between desiring to become holy and wanting to be worldly.
And this dilemma results from the paradox in the time we live in that as the world advances in modernity even more, the more that it gets bored. That’s why all brands compete which among them could give the most entertainment in video, music, tv and movie streaming services, video game consoles and games and coolest gadgets, such as smartphones, tablets and watches. It seems that our families and friends in the social media are bored too. When we see each other in person, there are theaters and restaurants to amuse us all together in our boredom. Easing boredom usually results to seeking comforts in all the pleasures that life has to offer.
Seeing all these around us, who wouldn’t find themselves in this holy-or-worldly dilemma? We often say, ‘It wouldn’t hurt to avail some of this and some of that, would it?’ The world wants to ease our boredom with entertainment and pleasures.
All we can do is to have the conscious will to not have unhealthy attachments with these material things and toxic people, and remove worldliness from our hearts as much as we can. Let us not waste any more time.
That is why it is really of Providence of God that Saint Teresa of Avila shared that part of her life and gave her thoughts on sinfulness. While she did not it yet at the time, she now sees in Heaven that her contribution is even more relevant for the people of this age—all of us alive on earth, who, as of this writing, are about to enter the 20’s ‘again’ (the new decade) in less than fifty days.
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Thy love.
Send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created.
And Thou shall renew the face of the earth.
Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us!
Saint Joseph, pray for us!
Mama Mary, pray for us!
Amen.
About This Series
In all the written works on the lives of the Saints that I read, one of the things I noticed is that most of them exhibited an extraordinary life of holiness since early childhood. We see this in Saint Thérèse of Lisieux who showed a deep love for God and charity for the poor even as a very small child, as narrated in her autobiography, A Story of the Soul. Another example is Saint Catherine of Siena. Her confessor wrote in her biography that she was just six years old when Jesus appeared to her in a vision, enthroned in Heaven with Saints Peter, Paul and John.
Most of us regular people, however, would not regard our spirituality during childhood and growing up years to be anywhere near those of Thérèse, Catherine and other Saints who started leading remarkably holy lives at a young age. And so whenever you hear that God wants us to become saints—that He wants you to become a saint, either you laugh over it and say, ‘Are you kidding me?!’ or you groan about it and sigh, ‘Too late for that.’
Don’t lose hope! In this Sinners Who Became Saints series, I will share with you how some of the notable Saints were once afflicted with worldly attachments, habitual sins and even gravely immoral ways. Anyone who reads this series would probably be able to relate to their very own stories one way or another. More importantly, the Saints in these posts are reassuring proof that sinners can indeed become saints—when the heart is humble to God’s mercy, and the spirit is docile to His will.
One might ask, why do we easily fall into sin?
Baptism cleanses man of the original sin acquired from our first parents Adam and Eve. However, the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle. Human nature has not been totally corrupted, but it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin – an inclination to evil that is called “concupiscence” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 405).
The Saints and the unnamed saints in Heaven were not exempted from this concupiscence during their earthly lives. All of them had to fight against the desires of the flesh. They, too, like us living at the present time, had to combat against temptations from the Devil and demons that take advantage of such concupiscence in our personal circumstances and weaknesses in body, mind and will.
Some Saints seemed to have struggled with concupiscence much more than the others. Those saints were among the worst of sinners, and lingered in the darkness of their mortal sins for a while. Some Saints, on the other hand, were not as worse, but they used to be worldlings – lovers of this world and the pleasures it offers. If we give into this concupiscence, we would always commit sin, venial ones at first. Some amount of venial sins here and there, if not stopped, addressed, and admitted in Confession could make us commit grave and mortal sins sooner or later. Thus, we must take to heart God’s call for us to become saints according to our state of life, and fervently pray for His grace to overcome our concupiscence.
From sinfulness to sanctity, the lives of these Saints tell us that there is hope in the Lord!
She graduated cum laude from the University of Santo Tomas, the country's Pontifical and Catholic university, with an AB in Legal Management and minor units in Theology.
As an unmarried woman, prayer holds a central place in her daily life, with a focus on the Rosary and the Divine Office. Embodying her faith, she emphasizes the growth of her inner spiritual life, guided by the wisdom of Carmelite spirituality.
God manifested to her in a unique and radical manner, which made her know Who He truly is and led her to total surrender of her life to Him.
She has studied the Bible with her family, developing a particular fondness for the Old Testament.
Her adorable and intelligent toy poodle is a delightful companion in her daily life, bringing warmth and joy to her home.
Her hobbies include reading about everything, learning Japanese and German, listening to music and playing the flute.
In her leisure time, she enjoys gaming on PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch OLED, Nintendo 3DS, iOS and OS, and collecting things related to PlayStation and Nintendo.
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this was so helpful for me! thank you! God Bless
Keep up the good works! I enjoyed your piece on St Teresa of Avila.