Interior Castle: Part 6

In our walk through St. Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle, we have now entered into the Sixth Mansions. This constitutes St. Teresa’s longest and most involved section, consisting of 11 chapters. I actually haven’t made it all the way through the Sixth Mansions as I write this blog, so there could be a Sixth Mansions- B post coming, but what St. Teresa says in the third chapter of this section is worth a post in and of itself.

So far we have noted several things about how we should approach God in prayer. In the Second Mansions, we saw that prayer begins with our desire that our will become conformed to God’s will. This is the idea behind Jesus’ words in John 14:13. There Jesus says, “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be gloried in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” Jesus isn’t saying that we can ask whatever we want as long as we end our prayer with “in Jesus name, amen.” Jesus is saying, “When you pray as I would pray, then I will give it to you.”

In the Third Mansions, St.Teresa does address prayers of request where she tells us two revolutionary ideas about praying for requests. First, she says that our “requests” are not for things but to be allowed to gain greater access to God and to remain in the presence of God. For St.Teresa, this is the greatest thing God can give us. Second, she says that we cannot ask the King to grant you a favor if you are not faithful to serve.

So far we having been doing all the talking, now in the Sixth Mansion St. Teresa answers the question- “How do we know when God is speaking to us in prayer?”

This question intrigues me because I am naturally skeptical when people tell me “God said…” or “God told me to do…” I don’t know why this makes me so skeptical; I guess it is because it makes me wonder if people are using God as a reason to do what they wanted to do the whole time. But in this section, St. Teresa gives us some help in determining if is, in fact, God who is speaking to us or if we are hearing our own desires or if the devil is deceiving us.    

When we hear something or feel something we think is God we can test it in four ways:

1. Is it Scriptural? St. Teresa says, “Unless it agrees strictly with the Scriptures, take no more notice of it” (SixthMansions, Chapter 3). If what we hear or feel something that contradicts the Bible then we know that it is not from God.

2. Does it carry power and authority?St.Teresa writes that if our “soul is distressed…and it is full of fear” the “single word it hears: ‘It is I, fear not,’ takes all its fear from it, and it is most marvelously comforted, and believes that no one will ever be able to make it feel otherwise” (Sixth Mansions, Chapter 3).

3. Do they bring peace? HereSt.Teresa doesn’t linger, only to say that God’s words bring tranquility to the soul because they are words of love.  

4. Do the words linger? “These words do not vanish from the memory for a very long time: some, indeed, never vanish at all. Words which we hear on earth- I mean, from men, however weighty and learned they may be- we do not bear so deeply engraven upon our memory” (Sixth Mansions, Chapter 3).

St.Teresa then says, with great insight, that “if what is said [by God] is of great importance and involves some action on the part of the hearer, or matters affecting a third person, one should do about it, or consider doing anything, without taking the advice of a learned confessor” (Sixth Mansions, Chapter 3). In the Protestant world, we don’t have confessors but we would substitute the word pastor. God doesn’t tell us anything in isolation but within the context of the church and community. That is why St. Teresa requests that we seek advice from others.

God does speak. God speaks through Scripture, teaching, meditation, nature, trusted friends and prayer. God will speak if we take the time to listen and if we are not too busy talking. Maybe I’m skeptical because I tend to do too much talking and not enough listening.

© Ryan Vanderland 2012