St Teresa of Avila Quotes

On Prayer

He always gives us more than we ask him for. Always.

There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers.

I know that many persons who say vocal prayers are raised by God to high contemplation without their knowing how.

It is our prayer that the Lord gives light to understanding His truths.

Humour
From silly devotions and from sour-faced saints, good Lord, deliver us.

Our
prayer must, therefore, be very earnest for those who give us light.
What should we be without them in the midst of these violent storms
which now disturb the Church.

Take
care not to miss this wonderful opportunity. Say the 'Our Father'
slowly without rushing. He is listening very close to you. This is the
best way to praise and honor His name.

Granting
that we are always in the presence of God, yet it seems to me that
those who pray are in His presence in a very different sense; for they,
as it were, see that He is looking upon them, while others may go for
days on end without even once recollecting that God sees them.

We have to become men and women of prayer, people who know how to deal personally with the one who loves us above everything.

There is no greater cause of straying from the path of faithful perseverance than letting up in prayer.

On Recollection
Recollection is nothing else, in my opinion, but being on terms of
friendship with God, frequently conversing in secret with Him, who we
know loves us.

On
Respect
To argue over who is the more noble is nothing more than to dispute
whether dirt is better for making bricks or for making mortar.

On Saints
Whenever I read in the lives of Saints of how they converted souls, I
seem to feel much more devout, more tender, and more envious of them
than when I read of all the martyrdoms that they suffered. This is an
inclination given me by Our Lord; and I think He prizes one soul, which
by His mercy and through our diligence and prayer we have gained, for
him, more than all the other services we can render Him.

On Self-Constraint
Don't be curious of matters that don't concern you; never speak of them, and don't ask about them.

On Worry
To wish to act like angels while we are still in this world is nothing but folly.

Just as we cannot stop the movement of the heavens, revolving as they do with such speed, so we cannot restrain our thought. And then we send all the faculties of the soul after it, thinking we
are lost, and have misused the time that we are spending in the
presence of God. Yet the soul may perhaps be wholly united with Him in
the Mansions very near His presence, while thought remains in the
outskirts of the castle, suffering the assaults of a thousand wild and
venomous creatures and from this suffering winning merit. So this must
not upset us, and we must not abandon the struggle, as the devil tries
to make us do.

Most of these trials and times of unrest come from the fact that we do not understand ourselves.

Interior Castle (1577)Fourth Mansions, Ch. 1, trans

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