Teresa, My Love: An Imagined Life of the Saint of Avila

LA MADRE. I am born all over again when you call, my Spouse, and my rebirth is not just vocal, not a brute cry, let alone an understanding. I am reborn in You through all my intermingled senses joined into one, mouth, skin, nostrils, eardrums, eyes, the whole garden awash with Your waters. (Reading, serene voice.) Didn’t you say to me that “turning away from corporeal things must be good, certainly, since such spiritual persons advise it.…[But] the most sacred humanity of Christ must not be counted in a balance with other corporeal things”?³⁹

(The Voice does not respond.)

LA MADRE. You are silent. Is Your Majesty’s Voice deserting me because It considers any corporeal thing likely to hinder contemplation of It? (Anxious voice.) But to withdraw completely from the body of Christ, or to count His divine Body among what causes us nothing but misery, no, I can’t accept it.⁴⁰ (Reading.) We can compare His Voice to “a food that many persons eat.”⁴¹ The epileptic, anorexic novice I once was, plagued by such nervous anxiety that everything frightened her, gradually relaxed and grew stronger, according to the academics García-Albea and Vercelletto, as well as that nice psychologist Leclercq. She acquired her manly courage by receiving from His Majesty the kiss a Bride demands. How good it tasted, Lord! (Replete, satisfied voice.) One sees how beneficial it is, and one’s taste has so adapted to this sweetness that one would rather die than to taste any other food.…(Pause.) Because anything else would only take away the delicious taste Your food left behind. (Exhalation.) Here an abundance of water was given to this unloved woman who was wounded…⁴² and thus I can live in Your world, separate from the world. Because I clearly heard You say: “You will grow very foolish, daughter, if you look at the world’s laws.”⁴³ (Nostalgic voice.) That was You, wasn’t it, Majesty? Where are You? You won’t talk to me anymore. Say, Lord, where has Your admirable, friendly company gone to…?

(The Voice remains silent.)

LA MADRE. “Dilatasti cor meum,”⁴⁴ so sang the Psalmist, but it’s not my heart, it’s another, still more interior part that dilates and expands in me.…(Pause.) It must be the center of the soul.…(Long pause.) Or the center of the body? (Shrewd smile.) Or maybe both?⁴⁵ I hope it’s not an illusion crafted by the devil, to feel that Your Voice impresses itself by dilating through me.…When Your Majesty inhabits me like that, everyone complains of what a ignoramus I am. All but the disciples of John of Avila, and the Jesuits.…(Pause.) Mind you, on reflection, it was the disciples of Loyola who got me to meditate on the sacred humanity of Jesus — at the time when I’m afraid I was adrift in some fairly hazy orisons, Osuna-style. (Knowing smile. Pause.) Answer me, Majesty, don’t desert me!

(Silence.)

LA MADRE. My nuptials with dear Eliseus, my father turned son…my fetus…my achievement…could well have been the devil’s work, if I hadn’t known that the fire came not from me but from You, Lord. (Tragic voice.) Not one word?…Perhaps Your silence, Majesty, suggests that Laurencia or Angela once shut herself all alone in a room with Eliseus? That she didn’t realize that the light which married them came from His Voice? (Pause.) Are you suggesting I’ve forgotten that the carnal furnace itself, the furnace of desire, is consubstantial with His Voice?…(Tragic but feeble voice.) That it doesn’t come from me or from you, Eliseus, but it does make us other, both of us, because it comes from the Other.…Perhaps I was foolish to the point of imagining.…Oh, it’s nothing but gossip…my Gratian decked out in garlands and crowns like a heavenly King.…I did, “I saw my Eliseus there, certainly not in any way black, but with a strange beauty. On his head was what resembled a garland of precious stones, and many maidens went before him with branches in their hands singing songs of praise to God. I didn’t do anything but open my eyes so as to distract myself, and this wasn’t enough to take away my attention. It seemed to me there was music from small birds and angels in which the soul rejoiced; although I didn’t hear it, but the soul was experiencing that delight.”⁴⁶ (Pause.) A Christ.…(Pause.) A sovereign.…(Pause.)

HIS VOICE, at last! You took a risk, the pair of you, unhappy sinners. But you managed to thwart the consequences, in the end. I choose to consider that you thwarted them, and would inevitably have done so sooner or later, because it was My Will that you should.…So there you are. It’s over now, go in peace, both of you.