This Saint Endured So Much Yet Never Flinched When It Came to Her Work

Consider a saint who endured so much yet never flinched when it came to her work: St. Teresa of Avila.

We've been noodling (with a bit of grousing) about being super-busy combined with super-tired. That's when work gets a bit over the top and Brother Ass (as St. Francis humorously refers to the body) let's us know he's not happy. And in our previous posts, we laid all this out - or at least tried to - in a kind of real life sequence. You know, this leads to that, which leads to another thing, etc. Ideally we learned some lessons about how to respond to what's hopefully rare in our work life, but may not be as rare as we'd like.

So with that background, turning to St. Teresa just seemed like a good idea. She provides us with an example of one who likely suffered a whole lot more than any of us have or will. And yet we know of her remarkable work after a rough start.

Rough start? Surprisingly, perhaps. Apparently she early on had a deep love of God and the desire for spiritual perfection. But then a kind of torpor weighed her down. She became lukewarm, didn't seem engaged with any serious desire to be holy, to do all that was asked of her. You can read about it, but just know that there was a long stretch of virtual indifference to her daily prayer and work. 

But then, by the grace of God, she changed. And once she did, she became the great saint we all know today.

With that change, though, her pain and suffering continued.

St. Teresa of Avila endured so much, physically and spiritually. And yet, if one reads of her life, once she underwent her "conversion" from indifference and lukewarmness, she never flinched when it came to her work.

Read about her life and all she accomplished in reforming her Carmelite order, and spreading that reform throughout Spain, and that alone can make us Catholic men wonder why we ever think we're so busy in our own work. Even when our work is exhausting - and it surely can be - it likely can never hold a candle to the work of this mighty saint.

Recently, her body was exhumed (yet again) and it was discovered that she likely suffered from physical deformities that made the simple act of walking terribly painful. And yet she traveled extensively in her efforts to reform, inspire and uplift her Carmelite Sisters. 

What is most remarkable about St. Teresa is her complete awareness of her situation. She did not pretend that her pain was somehow not a big deal. She felt every bit of it. And yet somehow she refused to let it hinder her extraordinarily acitve life. She was also spiritually assailed at times by, well, you-know-who. And this caused additional intense suffering.

And yet, in this suffering, she also was given extraordinary ecstacies that she has described in great detail. 

The great Italian artist Bernini tried to capture this in a rather famous sculpture. He created this not too long after the great saint had died. By then, she was well known and loved.

So there's yet another example of a saint who toiled faithfully and diligently despite her suffering. We likely don't face this sort of suffering in our work. Nor do we likely experience ecstasies such as St. Teresa did. God deals with each of us in His own way according to our individual temperaments. But rest assured He acts upon us in a manner appropriate to helping us to forge ahead in the face of whatever our particular difficulties may be.

St. Teresa, when any physical or spiritual suffering comes - as it likely will at least from time to time - we pray for your intercession to keep us from focusing on self, to help us attend to our duties diligently as did you even in the midst of great suffering.

 

Happy Easter!