• La Vida es Sueno
  Teresa of Avila: The Progress of a Soul

-April Renee Lynch

Teresa de Jesús, also known to modern folk as Teresa of Avila, the great Spanish mystic, was in many ways a complex individual. She was also one of the simplest of souls. Author Cathleen Medwick brings this combination of personality traits expertly to the fore in her unusually written, painstakingly researched hagiographical work Teresa of Avila: The Progress of a Soul. As a girl, according to Medwick, Teresa lived a somewhat unbridled life-she had as much freedom as a sixteenth-century Jewish conversa (a forcibly converted Jew, which her paternal grandfather was) could have had with the Inquisition ever present. But she began receiving infusions of direct knowledge from God-her "locutions"--she began having ecstatic visions, and she founded the Discalced ( literally "unshod") Carmelites as a response to the mitigated rule that was not as removed from the world as she felt service of God demanded.

And so Teresa's complex simplicity and Medwick's unusual approach come together. Teresa was always aware that her written word was an attempt to get important ideas across to men who felt a woman should never instruct them. Yet in order to found her convents and friaries she chose to, and did teach them. According to Medwick, Teresa either claimed to believe or in truth believed that men were better equipped naturally and by society to do all things better than women could. She was, therefore, always self-effacing: In Libro de la vida, the book of her life written at the request of one of her many confessors, she constantly referred to herself as a mujercilla, a worthless little woman. Being a worthless little woman meant that she did not have the vocabulary to describe the things God put into her heart and mind. So Medwick's translation of Teresa is homely, almost folksy. Medwick's explanatory prose is also filled with tropes. The two styles-both dense, Teresa's more polished, Medwick's more vernacular-play off of one another, with a surprisingly pleasant result. The whole is a gift to those interested some part of religious history. (I practically needed a scorecard to keep track of the players, though.)

Ultimately, the real world meant nothing to Teresa. She led a recollected life as a nun, in which she prayed, meditated, worked hard and gave the unit of worship that was her entire life to God. "She knew the world was only an illusion. La vida es sueno-life is a dream-was a phrase familiar to every Castilian [where Teresa was born], young and old. But heaven. . .was para siempre, siempre, forever and ever. [p.9]" The complex simplicity of this woman we know as Teresa lies in the fact that we know her for the deeds done in her life as well as the dream of her ecstatic prayer. Jewish-magazine-editor-turned-saint's-biographer Cathleen Medwick has shown us Teresa as an historical motive force most powerful from the pages of her Vida, the walls of a convent, the confines of her soul.

Back to the current book review.
April Lynch recently received her M.A. in Art History from U.C. Irvine: she hopes soon to enjoy a career as an art historian. She has been a member of St. Agnes since 1990.