FAITH WORKING THROUGH LOVE

ST TERESA OF AVILA, VIRGIN, DOCTOR

Gal 5:1-6; Ps 119:41,43-45,47-48; Lk 11:37-41

The Power of Faith working through Love

As we celebrate the memorial of St. Teresa of Jesus, as she is popularly known, we revert to St. Paul’s stress on faith as the path leading to the salvation Jesus Christ won for us through his life, death, and resurrection. In today’s passage, he continues with the theme of freedom and slavery. Our faith in Jesus Christ brings us to the freedom of the Spirit of God. This freedom is definitive of the Christian life because it is not essentially a human life but a participation in the life of God through the Holy Spirit we have received by our profession of faith in Jesus Christ. Freedom is the freedom of the Eternal Wisdom through which God created all things. Participation in the Eternal Wisdom is a sharing of the divine life and power. We can embrace this power only because God offered it to us in the incarnation of the Eternal Wisdom. Our admittance into the life of God is at the instance of his death to satisfy what we owe to divine justice through our disobedience to the Father’s will. This disobedience at the root of human nature caused our enslavement, which made it impossible for any man to be pleasing to God by the work of the Law.

This initial contamination of our nature made the Law an instrument of slavery. The intention of God in publishing the Law to Isreal was to make the slavery of human nature known to them and us. Paul stressed this in the passage. “It is I, Paul, who tell you this: if you allow yourselves to be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you at all. With all solemnity I repeat my warning: Everyone who accepts circumcision is obliged to keep the whole Law. But if you do look to the Law to make you justified, then you have separated yourselves from Christ, and have fallen from grace.” Subsequently, the freedom we gain in believing in Christ’s death for us comes from living henceforth as if we are dead and only alive for Christ. The implication is that we live to do his bidding, which is the will of the Father that he reveals to us. Since a life of total obedience is made perfect through loving the one we want to obey, our Christian faith finds its perfection in living and doing everything for the love of Jesus Christ. The Lord sent his Holy Spirit to us who believe in him for this purpose. So, our growth in holiness is the exercise of our faith in loving Jesus Christ daily. As Paul concluded, “what matters is faith that makes its power felt through love.”

This faith that exercises its influence through love characterised and showcased the life of St. Teresa of Jesus. The Lord gently remonstrated with the Pharisee who invited him to his house, who felt embarrassed that our Lord did not do the customary washing before the meal. “Oh, you Pharisees! You clean the outside of cup and plate, while inside yourselves you are filled with extortion and wickedness.” This correction confirms St. Paul’s stress on faith and working through love as the hallmark of Christian spirituality. The life of Teresa of Avila completely conformed to this principle of Christian perfection. St. Teresa was a Carmelite nun who lived in the seventeenth century. She was born in Avila, Spain, and entered the convent at 20. Her vocation to the religious life was not by any marked attraction but by popular piety, as the Carmelite convents were comfortable places. There was no restriction from contact with the world, and the nuns had private possessions. With regular practice of contemplative prayer, despite her ill health, Teresa started receiving mystical experiences from the Lord. She was suspicious of these experiences, considering herself unworthy of them. Gradually, she made great progress in the holiness of life with the spiritual guidance of some spiritual directors. Worthy of mention is especially St. John of the Cross.   She started the reformation of the Carmelite convents and founded the Discalced Carmelite nuns in Avila. Her driving force in all she did was the love of Jesus Christ, in which she immersed herself, which made her attain a mystical marriage with the Lord. She teaches us this way of perfection through love in all her works. In her life, we learn how contemplative life can gradually well up and overflow into powerful actions for the love of God and neighbour.

Let us pray: O God, who through your Spirit raised up Saint Teresa of Jesus to show the Church the way to seek perfection, grant that we may always be nourished by the food of her heavenly teaching and fired with longing for true holiness.