Introduction to a seven-part series

By SUSAN BRINKMANN
CS&T Correspondent

There’s a kingdom inside you, a magnificent castle filled with mystical delights and supernatural adventures. This interior castle is the domain of those willing to let go of the worldly in order to grasp the otherworldly. They cling to nothing except Him who said, “Take up your cross and follow me. … The Kingdom of heaven is within you.”
What is this kingdom and where can we find it?
This question was once asked by St. Teresa of Avila, the great mystical doctor of the Church who lived 500 years ago. While deep in prayer, she wondered what the soul looked like, and the Lord favored her with a most remarkable intellectual vision.
“I began to think of the soul as if it were a castle made of a single diamond,” the Saint wrote, “or of very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms, just as in Heaven there are many mansions.” Some mansions were above, others below, others at each side. “And in the center and midst of them all is the chiefest mansion where the most secret things pass between God and the soul.”
The central mansion issued a brilliant light that penetrated into the outermost mansions of the castle. The further away from the center, the dimmer the light. Teresa was made to understand that the whole goal of a person’s life was to penetrate that central mansion where they would achieve what is known as the transforming union — or spiritual marriage — with God. This union is the height of one’s mystical experience on earth. Beyond this, there is nothing left but the Beatific Vision.
When St. Teresa told her confessor about this vision, he asked her to write it down. She scoffed. “Let the learned men do the writing and leave me to my spinning.”
But she obeyed and sat down to do as he asked. She was still wondering what on earth to write when she picked up her pen and put to paper what would become the greatest work of mystical theology in existence — “The Interior Castle.”
Father Thomas Dubay, S.M., an authority on mystical prayer, called “The Interior Castle” “the all-time classic on the question of the development of prayer from is incipient beginnings to its mature fullness in the transforming union.” The whole course of the mystical life is contained in this one volume. It is the encyclopedia of Catholic prayer.
But why do we need to know about our spiritual development in order to learn how to pray?
Because the single most common mistake we make is to try to separate prayer from the spiritual life. This is one of the most fundamental flaws in the New Age movement.
Authentic Christian prayer can never be reduced to a technique or relaxation exercise that can be learned in a weekend workshop. Catholic prayer cannot be detached from the “tough love” Gospel in which it is imbedded.
Those who want authentic contact with God in prayer must be willing to follow the Master’s instructions: “Take up your cross and follow Me.” The depth of one’s prayer life is completely dependent upon their commitment to the Gospel.
As Dubay said, “Advancing communion with God does not happen in isolation from the rest of life. One’s whole behavior pattern is being transformed as prayer deepens. So true is this that if humility, patience, temperance, chastity and love for neighbor are not growing, neither is prayer growing.”
But doesn’t “wondering where we are” in our spiritual life shift our attention from God to ourselves. Yes. But while it is true that we should not be introspective during prayer, it is also true that the person who lacks a practical understanding of prayer and the mystical life places themselves at a distinct disadvantage.
First, the person who doesn’t understand that progress in prayer often means long dry spells devoid of all consolation is the perfect candidate for a religious thrill — which they may very well find in the New Age or any number of dangerous cults.
Second, we run the risk of living our whole life believing that vocal prayer is all there is to prayer. Because we don’t know any better, we assume that mystical forms of prayer, such as infused contemplation, are meant only for those in cloistered orders. We have no way of knowing that God gives to whom He wills, what He wills, when He wills — which pretty much includes everything and everybody.
Third, and perhaps worst, is the possibility that God will grant lofty favors to a soul who actually flees from them out of fear because they don’t understand what’s happening to them. The Saint herself writes, “If the Lord grants you these favors, it will be a great consolation to you to know that such things are possible. … Sometimes He will do this only to manifest His power, as He said to the blind man to whom He gave his sight. … He grants these favors not because those who receive them are holier than those who do not, but in order that His greatness may be made known. …”
What kinds of favors is she talking about? Ecstasies, raptures, transports of spirit, flights of spirit, wounds of love, spiritual betrothal, spiritual marriage, levitation. Believe it or not, there is only one favor in this list that is considered by theologians to be “extraordinary” — levitation. All others are considered common.
Yes, common — even to us ordinary folk.
Many of us don’t think this is possible for us because we have yet to discover the God in whose image we were made. Until we do, we’ll never really know who we are or what we’re capable of achieving in the spiritual life.
“It is no small pity, and should cause no little shame, that, through our own fault, we do not understand ourselves or know who we are,” St. Teresa said. “As to what good qualities there may be in our souls, or Who dwells within them, or how precious they are, those are things we seldom consider and so we trouble little about carefully preserving the soul’s beauty.”
Our focus in life is almost entirely on our bodies, rather than on our souls. In the Saint’s estimation, this is the equivalent of admiring the setting rather than the diamond.
As a result, most of us will spend our entire lives huddling like caterpillars in our little cocoons, never realizing that God intended to transform us into graceful butterflies — beautiful, free and radiantly alive.
Beginning next week, we will present a seven-part series that will take us on a journey through the seven mansions of the soul as laid out in the book, “The Interior Castle,” by St. Teresa of Avila, translated and edited by E. Allison Peers. For occasional clarification, we will use the commentary of Father Thomas Dubay from his book, “Fire Within.”

Contact Susan Brinkmann at fiat723@aol.com or (215) 965-4615