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- In her autobiography, written as a defense of her ecstatic mystical experiences, she discerns four stages in the ascent of the soul to God: mental prayer and meditation; the prayer of quiet; absorption-in-God; ecstatic consciousness.
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In her first work St. Teresa explains the grades of prayer by using the symbol of the "four waters," or more precisely, the four methods of watering a garden.
- Introduction
- Meditation
- The Prayer of Quiet
- Union
- Rapture
Why did Teresa write about these four stages of mystical prayer? She put it this way: In other words, her goal is to inspire you to want these things!Our lives would be so much better if we strove after these things. In most cases, we do not receive them instantly. Instead, most of us will invest long eras of prayer in each stage before we are adva...
Meditation is the first stage of mystical prayer. Teresa also calls it devotions, disciplined prayer, and mental prayer. Beginners learn to meditate on the life of Jesus Christ. They come to feel tenderness and an interior feeling of devotion. They might become enkindled with great love. Meditation can be achieved, at least partly, by our own effor...
The Prayer of Quiet is the second stage of mystical prayer. It is a prayer-state that borders on the supernatural. Unlike meditation, we cannot achieve the Prayer of Quiet by our own efforts. We are unable to do anything to acquire this blessing. When it arrives, we are to put our meditation and other prayer practices aside and simply rest in it. I...
Your faculties fall asleep, and you become absorbed in union. It is a union of your entire soul with God. The pleasure and sweetness and delight you experience are incomparably greater than in the Prayer of Quiet. Even your body shares in the soul’s joy and delight. Sometimes the soul seems to be one the point of leaving the body. The faculties ret...
During Rapture, all your faculties fade away and are suspended. The Lord gathers up your soul. Your soul no longer seems to animate your body. Your hearing and thinking are dimmed. And you are carried away. Gently. Joyfully. Silently. Ecstatically. There is no power left in your body. Your eyes involuntarily close. Your breath diminishes. Your puls...
In this insightful article, Fr. Jordan Aumann, O.P., details the various stages of prayer as explained by St. Teresa through all of her major works—The Life, The Way of Perfection, and The Interior Castle.
Apr 19, 2022 · The First Four Levels. The first four levels are those which belong to the “ascetical stage.” These are the temporal, or wordly, physical levels. Level 1: Vocal Prayer
St. Teresa refers to the early stages of prayer as “frequent solitary conversation with Him who, as we know, loves us.” Tasting the sweetness of loving conversation with Jesus, even in its simplest form, makes the soul yearn for more.
- Gina Loehr
Aug 1, 2020 · In Chapters 11 to 21, she explains the four types of prayer, the four steps to God. St Teresa compares our soul to a watered garden -- important in the Spanish climate, especially in Castile. She calls them the “four watering systems”, or the “four methods by which the garden may be watered”.
CHAPTER XVIII. -- Treats of the fourth degree of prayer. Begins to describe in an excellent way the great dignity conferred by the Lord upon the soul in this state. This chapter is meant for the great encouragement of those who practise prayer to the end that they may strive to reach this lofty state, which it is possible to
