One of the best-known of saints, Teresa of Avila, lived in 16th-century Spain. Her own spiritual autobiography is a true classic of Western religious literature, and has been translated into numerous languages throughout the last half-millennium. In 1970, Pope Paul VI named Teresa “Doctor of the Church“–a designation reserved for such luminaries as Augustine, Aquinas, Jerome, and Athanasius. Teresa was the first female so named, and is one of only four women to be elevated to such high esteem.

Teresa is also known for being elevated–literally–in prayer! More on that in a bit.

Teresa describes four stages of uniting with God in prayer:

1. First, the soul, in a private location, settles into a calm state of mind with the life of Christ as the mind’s focus.
2. Second is the period of quiet–during which the soul’s will, thoughts, and feelings are “recollected” and, in an integral/integrated way, are laid before God to be used for love. The intellect and the will are invited to rest in this state rather than to assert primacy.
3. Third is the period of repose, which is not to confused with inactivity. Here, the settled, quiet, re-collected soul (the integrated mind/body/spirit) gives itself fully over to uniting itself with the love and joy of the Divine. Here, Teresa freely admits that she cannot articulate or even comprehend what “happens.”
4. The fourth is, in Teresa’s words, “a more perfect union of all the powers of the soul, suspended and absorbed in God . . . .” She continues: “This is accompanied with so great interior joy and delight, that . . . a single moment would be, even in this life, a sufficient recompense for all the pains we have undergone.”

In this fourth stage of union with God, Teresa writes that “the soul knows she is in rapture, whilst she is by the most ardent love ravished in God.” Ravished. Seized and carried off or away. Transported, in a forceful way. Swept away. Dorothy and Toto in the Kansas cyclone.

And, in this very vein, Teresa herself more than once found herself lifted from the ground physically–twice in public–while in this rapturous fourth stage of prayer, of union with the love of God. Indeed these experiences led Teresa to beseech God, from humility and concern, that others might never again view her levitation. No doubt she did not want to be branded a witch or to have her faith regarded as magic tricks, nor did Teresa wish to draw attention to herself rather than toward God.

So unlike the scholastic Thomas Aquinas or the eternally/internally conflicted Augustine or the multi-lingual Jerome, Teresa was willing to trust her instincts to be drawn to and to trust in God. Her way of praying involved no self-flagellation, no specific attention on the sufferings of Christ for her sake (note that the first stage is about choosing the life and the not the death of Christ as her focus), no acts of penance even. No. Teresa simply brought herself in a holistic way to God, and reposed in that love-infused relationship–allowing that love to work upon her in whatsoever way it might, fearing no change that this union might work.

If Pope Paul VI never accomplished anything else, he did a great service to all by identifying that Teresa as having something invaluable to teach us all.

Saint Teresa, Doctor of the Church.