(Silence from John. Wary tenderness.)
TERESA, in an anxious voice. Do you think, Father, that I allot too little space for the Holy Spirit? That I only mention it when a great scholar like yourself steers me back onto the straight and narrow? (Pause, short laugh.) Oh, but I said that in the Life…that’s the meaning of the dove…of course!27
(Silence from John.)
TERESA, fast. I can see you coming, with your pure-man’s objections to the base woman I am! That Christocentric Teresa, not theocentric enough—that’s what people will say, and I expect them to. Still, I often wrote and here repeat that when the Persons of the Trinity “take human flesh” in my soul, I felt a kind of obstacle to seeing three of them (parece me hacía algún impedimento ver tres Personas):28 Not easy, for I am a creature, and a sinner.
(Silence from John.)
TERESA. Quite quickly, however, the Lord filled me with His presence. “In emptying my soul of all that is creature and detaching myself for the love of God, the same Lord will fill it with Himself.”29 (In a greedy voice.) That’s right, the Lord, Cristo como hombre, man and God, Son and Father, both inseparable and all of them deep inside me. But you’re the opposite, you only countenance the carnal figures of God—kisses, splendors, or what have you—to beseech them, to moan and groan over them, and then run away. Whereas I have our Guest dentro de mí. (Normal voice.) That’s the difference between us, my ideal father. For you, it gets cleansed in the fires of agreeable tortures, is that right? That’s what you feel?
(Heavy silence from John.)
(Teresa stares at him for a while. Concerned tenderness. Silence.)
JOHN OF THE CROSS. “Where have You hidden,
Beloved, and left me moaning?
You fled like the stag
And after wounding me;
I went out calling You, and You were gone.”30
TERESA, pulling back again, not looking at John anymore. Hands crossed over her breast, like the blue-cloaked Virgin image bequeathed by her mother, La Madre looks inside herself. I’m not saying it’s not like that, but here again the Trinity is at stake, and my Trinity is as bodily, delectable and obliging as the Spouse when He does me the favor of lodging within.…If I tell you that Christ is inside of me, it goes without saying that only divinity penetrates there, but naturally, if I may put it that way.…The humanity alone of the Son could never enter into our souls, many learned fathers have told me so, and I agree. And yet since the Three Persons are united and inside us, I understand—and this is where our experiences differ, Father, with all due respect—I understand how this offering from the Son, the only Person to have become incarnate, is pleasing.31…Yes, pleasing to the Father who receives it. (Pause.) But inside my soul…deep inside my soul.…(Reading with her soul the text from the Testimonies as it scrolls past on the Virgin’s blue veil.)…Pleasing deep inside my soul.…Do you understand? This offering enables the Father Himself to enjoy, down here on earth, the pleasure of His Son. Both together. Deep inside me. The Father rejoices in His Son within my soul. I mean that the delights of the filial sacrifice are permitted to the Father and to the Son and to the Spirit, and that these three divine Persons are inside us.…(Pause.)
(John keeps his eyes fastened on the flame.)
TERESA, exhaling deeply. Ah, dear Seneca, I’m sorry to repeat myself so often, but within us such great mysteries lie! At the moment of Communion, our interior is more than bodily when pleasure involves both body and soul. Does that make it any less spiritual? (Pause.) For me, the two go together. (Long silence, then slight smile.) No matter if the officiating priest is in sin: the reception of the jouissance of the Three Persons inside depends rather on the soul receiving the sacrament. If the sun doesn’t shine on a piece of pitch as it does on glass, the fault is not with the sun but with the pitch.32 (Imploring tone.) I myself have no hopes of conquering Heaven or avoiding Hell, I want to live here and now, lowly smear of pitch that I am, like a pane of glass penetrated by Christ made man, inseparable from the Holy Trinity. By my love, in the delightful friendship of His sacred humanity, spirit and body together, I try to achieve what you seek in your hopeless pursuit: “And He was gone.” It’s the living God, dwelling in my soul, who grants me the favor of such a powerful energy. “Esto no es como otras visiones, porque lleve fuerza con la fe.”33
(Silence.)
“Look, look, she’s going up again, she’s off the ground, she’s flying!” Ana de San Bartolomé and Teresita scramble for a better look from the parlor door.
“And Father John of the Cross, too!” Catalina de la Concepción and María Bautista have joined them.
(Silence.)
JOHN OF THE CROSS. I take what you are saying, Madre, but not completely. What you do in your relish is to gobble down sacred history until your mouth bleeds with it: look at the state you’re in! You’re dying, I realize that—but throughout your life this kind of symptom, or worse, has always waylaid you. I am well informed of it, and was even a witness on some occasions. (Pause.) Once you nearly choked on the Lord’s blood…or was the blood yours? (In a cold, level voice.) You seem blind to the difference, when it comes to union with Him as you engage in it. Is that what you’ve been trying to tell me, yet again? (John of the Cross lands his chair on the ground in front of Teresa, the better to fulfill his confessor’s vocation.)
(Long silence from Teresa.)
JOHN OF THE CROSS. To make myself clear, tell me, are you capable of distinguishing between sensuality on the one hand and the taint of the sensual on the other? I’m asking you, Mother, and I’m not asking lightly. We both agree that nature takes pleasure in spiritual things. “Since both the spiritual and the sensory part of the soul receive gratification from that refreshment, each part experiences delight according to its own nature and properties. The spirit, the superior part of the soul, experiences renewal and satisfaction in God; and the sense, the lower part, feels sensory gratification and delight because it is ignorant of how to get anything else, and hence takes whatever is nearest, which is the impure sensory satisfaction. It may happen that while a soul is with God in deep spiritual prayer, it will conversely passively experience sensual rebellions, movements, and acts in the senses, not without its own great displeasure. This frequently happens at the time of Communion. Since the soul receives joy and gladness in this act of love—for the Lord grants the grace and gives himself for this reason—the sensory part also takes its share, as we said, according to its mode. Since, after all, these two parts form one suppositum, each one usually shares according to its mode in what the other receives. As the philosopher says: ‘Whatever is received is received according to the mode of the receiver.’34 Because in the initial stages of the spiritual life, and even more advanced ones, the sensory part of the soul is imperfect, God’s spirit is frequently received in this sensory part with this same imperfection. Once the sensory part is reformed through the purgation of the dark night, it no longer has these infirmities. Then the spiritual part of the soul, rather than the sensory part, receives God’s spirit, and the soul thus receives everything according to the mode of the spirit.”35
TERESA, eyes lowered, she continues to gaze inside her soul. The sensual also takes delight in spiritual things, Father, and I do not find that spirit and sense are so divorced from one another. Nor does merit consist only of gratification, it also means action, suffering, and love, all at once and together. “Look at my life: you will find no joy there other than that of Mount Thabor.” Of the Transfiguration. For incontinence of love is not dirty, Father; it is an excess that leads us down the true path, the path of suffering: I can’t forget that.36 And I understood that you intended to reel me back toward your reason, your purity, when you offered me just half a wafer at Communion; you must remember that occasion, one which religious commentators will pick over avidly for ever and ever, amen.…(Short laugh.) You were already playing the psychoanalyst, my dear Seneca, trying to cure passion by means of frustration, weren’t you, go on! (Jovial laugh
.) But surely the Discalced Rule I restored aims at the same result? I discovered it long before I met you, after all. (Vehemently.) And yet deep down in my soul I never thought it necessary to lay on the penance with a trowel, as your men do in Pastrana, and you too, in your own burning way.…The Rule, no more and no less: that seems enough to me. “The rule that heals all,” as a woman will write four centuries hence, without the least inkling of my existence.…37
JOHN OF THE CROSS. I am a denying spirit, whereas you say yes to everything.
(Silence.)
TERESA. To everything, but also to nothing, Father. (Eyes, head-on.) On that day I mentioned, even if you’d given me nothing but a crumb of Host, or none at all, I to whom the Lord had already given so much would have felt just as replenished by the mere fact of knowing He exists. (Eyes, looking upward.) Therefore the presence of His Majesty—even in a tiny speck of matter on my tongue—is more than sufficient to unite me to the Beloved, in a way you cannot imagine, Father, with all due respect. (Lips.)
JOHN OF THE CROSS. O guiding night! O night more lovely than the dawn! O night that has united the Lover with his beloved, transforming the beloved in her Lover.38
TERESA, losing her temper. So tell me, Father. When you say: “transforming the beloved in her Lover,” you’re talking about your soul, of course, but don’t you also mean yourself, Brother John, here before me in flesh and blood? Yourself in the feminine? Or am I mistaken, being so lowly.…Yo que soy ruin.39 (Lips.)
(Silence from John.)
TERESA, eyes head-on. Shall I have the impertinence to repeat, Father, that your mournful felicity frightens me? (Reading.) Of course, like Christ…you are suspended in the void…your heart racked by love and forever unsatisfied. How far I am, I the sinner, from that heart burning to obtain something or other…but loathing any food he sees!40 I am the unworthy servant of your Lord, chosen by His Majesty to be filled with the divine essence.…
JOHN OF THE CROSS, edging his chair back a little, pinched face, then expressionless. “Not that which is most delectable, but that which is most unpleasing; not that which gives most pleasure, but rather that which gives least.”41 (John of the Cross begins to take flight, trying to escape La Madre’s appetites.)
TERESA. Your naked faith, my son, your desnuda fe is unsparing toward naked flesh.42 (Pause.) Here, I’ll offer you this insight, Father, the modest opinion of a woman. (Eyes upward, then down.) The only naked faith is that which transits through naked flesh, that’s what I’ve realized.…Only transits, mind you…Can you understand that, my little Seneca? (Broken voice.)…But what an incandescent transport in that baring of the flesh! (Flies off in her turn.)
(Silence from John.)
TERESA, vehemently. Yes, my soul’s union with the Three Persons is a matrimonial one, dear Father—that is the divine mystery. Edith Stein says about human marriage in her Science of the Cross, listen: “Its actual reality has its highest reason for existence in that it can give expression to a divine mystery”—or perhaps it’s the other way around?43 (Long silence.) For my part, I can’t see how that can be possible unless the soul is wedded to the sacred humanity of the Son of God. The Lord necessarily wants to make His presence felt: “Quiere dar a sentir esta presencia…para conocer que allí está Dios.”44 And God the Father, along with the Holy Ghost, are necessarily present at the nuptials.…That is their place, and this union gives it to them, gives rise to them.…
(Silence from John.)
TERESA. Won’t you answer, my little Seneca? Say, do you really hold the people of Israel to be the Bride? In the Song of Songs, of course. But the Bride of the Trinitary God? Of the Holy Spirit, I mean, as well as of the Father and the Son; of the Three Persons in their distinctness and yet substantial oneness? I can’t affirm this incontrovertibly when I listen to you…and yet it’s of the essence, for me. It’s a question of bodies, do you understand? Of course you do, forgive my choice of words, dear John.…In the long run people will realize, I know they will, that our religion—Christianity, of course, what else—that Christianity was founded on the loss of a body. Michel de Certeau will spell it out; he’ll be very fond of us both, believe it or not. The loss of Christ’s body, of course, but duplicated—are you listening—by the loss of the body of Israel.…It’s obvious, surely.…Well, the disappearance of both kinds of body, the Christic and the Jewish, was perhaps necessary: logically there had to be a detachment from both “nation” and “genealogy,” as they will be called, if the religion was to become universal and spiritual. In the Jewish tradition, you know, living bodies are always shifting and moving around.…Among us, the party of the Crucified One, it’s different, as I hardly need tell you: we start off depriving ourselves of the body and then, based on that absence, we keep trying to “form a body,” to incorporate ourselves. Don’t you think? You and me too, we make ourselves a body out of words, not in the same way as each other, but still. Add in the ecclesiastical body, the doctrinal corpus, all of that…delightful experiences, I grant you.…The Word becomes flesh and back again, a risky operation for the likes of us, and not given to all: you tend to overlook the flesh, and I the word.…Where was I? Oh yes, the Trinity. Well, there it is, the Bride can’t help but wed all three of them! And like the Sulamitess finds her Solomon, I find Him in the actual reality of marriage. “Draw me, we will run after thee.” That’s your sentiment too, Father. So let’s continue. Read with me what follows: “The king hath brought me into his chambers; we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine.”45
(Long silence.)
TERESA, heavy sigh, before resuming, convinced and convincing. Heaven opens its gates to us in this life, that’s what I’m trying to say. Your business, the trato as you call it, is an affair of faith, that is, of knowledge. But it’s not because the contemplation I dwell in is an affair of the heart that the soul does not unite fully with God. (Short silence. Normal voice.) Then, in the surrender to God’s will, “the soul wants neither death nor life”: “Tiene tanta fuerza este rendimiento a ella, que la muerte ni la vida se quiere, si no es por poco tiempo cuando desea ver a Dios.”46 (Beaming smile.) We concur on this point, my son, don’t we?
JOHN OF THE CROSS, clearing his throat, hesitating a moment, then speaking fast. There’s no longer any need to question God as in the olden days, under the Ancient Law. (Without looking at her, his eyes seem to be listening.) Listen to Christ: God has no more to reveal. The Word no longer speaks, and instead the Spirit of Truth makes itself understood. (Closes eyes.) Understanding…understanding…understanding.…(Gazing in rapture at the ceiling, with ramrod body.)
TERESA. In my own way I, too, manage to attain a measure of understanding…reaching the Spirit of truth itself…fire and splendor.…“Neither death nor life are objects of desire anymore,” do you hear me? And if my intercession could lead a single soul to love Him more, it would matter more to me than being in glory. “Y si pudiese ser parte que siquiera un alma le amase más y alabase por mi intercesión, que aunque fuese por poco tiempo, me parece importa más que estar en la gloria.”47
Therefore do the virgins love thee…
The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s.
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth…48
You’ll say, my great friend, that I lack “understanding of the vernacular meaning of the Latin,” and you have a point. But I feel great joy every time I read the Song of Songs, a great spiritual consolation, for “my soul is stirred and recollected more than by devotional books written in the language I understand.”49
A deafening noise interrupts the holy dialogue. The monastery door is being battered by fists, sticks, and musket butts; will it hold firm?
The stage goes dark for the duration of the protracted assault.
When the lights come up again, but only dimly, the moribund woman is back in bed.
TERESA, agitated. Owls, Carmelites of the observation, cats, wolves, discalced monks.…I mean, mitigated ones.…All of them, anyway
, they’re coming, they’re after Brother John! Help, Sisters, help! (La Madre rears up in bed, fearfully. She fears the martyrdom planned by the enemies of her discalced reforms for this peerlessly chaste and pure priest. Or does she really fear John’s judgment of her?)
ANA DE SAN BARTOLOMÉ, never having had much notion of time, now confuses one major crisis with another. After all, there have been so many. No, Mother, it’s the alguaciles trying to break down the door. But don’t worry, the sisters are reinforcing it with heavy joists. We’ll look after you!
ACT 3, SCENE 2
TERESA OF AVILA
TERESITA
JOHN OF THE CROSS
HIS COMPANION
BOSSUET, bishop, writer, the “Eagle of Meaux”
SYLVIA LECLERCQ, psychologist
The stage goes momentarily dark. Teresa is still in conversation with John, now present only in the forms of his voice and his portrait, an anonymous work of the Spanish school.
JOHN OF THE CROSS, voice receding, reciting his works. “The interior bodily sense—namely, the imagination and the fancy; this we must likewise void of all the imaginary apprehensions and forms that may belong to it by nature.…”50
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