Teresa of Avila, 1515-1582
Feastday October 15
Teresa of Avila was one of the first women to be declared a doctor of the Church. She serves as a cartographer of the spiritual life. Her most famous work is the Interior Castle
Teresa’s Castle
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The outer ring of the Castle is the first mansions of the Castle where the soul begins to hear the voice of God in the midst of many distractions and temptations. The door to the Castle is prayer.
The next ring is where ones hearing grows more keen but there are ups and downs signified by the two colors in the struggle to follow.
The third set of mansions or suites in the Castle is where she says we become like snails just creeping along. Here people become so complacent with themselves they cannot run to God. It is where most of us are in the Castle.
The fourth set of mansions is one of intense trials as the person is weaned away from superficial devotions and has to practice more substantial virtues. The soul spins a cocoon a dwelling in Christ in preparation for transformation.
Those who make it to the fifth mansions of the Castle experience a spiritual espousal and are transformed like a butterfly—Teresa’s most famous metaphor.
The sixth mansions are marked by very intense difficulties—temptations to despair, reversals, misfortunes. And some persons experience intense spiritual phenomena which bring their own enlightenment.
The seventh and center mansions of suites of the Castle are the dwelling of the Trinity which the spiritual seeker has longed for. Here the seeker is united with the Three.
What Teresa’s teaches about the spiritual life is just as applicable now as it was in her own time. We have to adjust ourselves to the culture of her time when reading her works just like we have to become accustomed to the culture of the Gospels in order to appreciate the literature of the New Testament. But the truths it contained are timeless and universal.
Mary of Magdala, First Century
Feastday July 22
Mary of Magdala is mentioned 14 times in the gospels more than any other person except Peter. That alone tells us something about her importance. The early Church never referred to her as a sinful woman. That come a few centuries later when preachers were far removed from the culture of the New Testament and did not understand that being delivered from seven demons was a reference to severe illness (all illness was thought to be caused by devils).
Mary’s closeness to Jesus is seen not only by the fact that she was at the cross, but by the fact that Jesus made her the first witness of his resurrection and commissioned her to go and tell the other disciples that he was risen. He addresses her by name: “Mary” and she in turn addresses him not simply as “Lord” but as “my Lord.”
It is likely that Mary first met Jesus and was cured by him in the synagogue in Magdala which was a very prosperous sea-side city with many industries in Jesus’ time. Fish caught on the Sea of Galilee were processes there to be sent to Jerusalem and as far as Rome. The synagogue was unique for its time and we know that Jesus spoke in local synagogues in Galilee.
Mary followed Jesus in his travels in Galilee and quite possibly out of her own finances subsidized many of his missionary trips. She was with the group of disciples who went to Jerusalem for the Passover during which Jesus died and rose again. It is possible that she stayed at the home of John the Beloved in Jerusalem as did Peter during the big festivals. Thus she knew just where Peter and John were on Easter morning.
John the Beloved saw the Christ event—Jesus life, death and resurrection—as a new creation and in this new creation woman is restored to a position of equality with man. For him that was the significance of Jesus’ appearance to Mary and his commissioning of her on Easter morning. Because she is the first to see the risen Jesus and that vision inaugurates a new religious era this mandala is in the shape of an eye. It depicts the three great moments in Mary’s life: meeting Jesus in Galilee, staying by the cross when he died and seeing the risen Jesus on Easter morning. Her name as spoken by Jesus with so much tenderness and personal affection echoes through the ages. These events in Mary’s life teach us very important lessons: that friendship endures in the resurrection, that woman’s role in the new creation is one of equality as in the original creation.
Catherine of Siena, 1347-1380
Feast Day April 29
Catherine was the youngest of 22 children. Despite the opposition of her parents who wanted her to marry, she resolved to become a Third Order Dominican. This was accomplished after a lengthy struggle with her mother. Catherine began having spiritual experiences at age five. These continued all her life and were the occasion of much of her spiritual doctrine which is expressed in her treatise, the “Dialogue,” and in numerous letters. She tried in vain to bring peace between warring factions of her Italian country men. She was successful in persuading the Pope to return to Rome from exile in Avignon. However, two years later a new Pope was elected who set off a schism in the Church by the harshness with which he addressed the matter of reforms. Catherine, who was broken-hearted at this turn of events, labored ceaselessly but n vain, to heal the breach before her death a short time later at age 33. She is honored as a Doctor of the Church for her teachings on the Spiritual life.
The mandala represents major points from Catherine’s Dialogue. The fish is one of her favorite symbols. She uses it to describe the experience of the presence of God: “The fish is in the water and the water is in the fish.”
The backbone, so to speak of the Dialogue is Catherine’s bridge which is Christ. She describes Christ’s role using features of a famous covered bridge in Florence which she had occasion to cross in her travels. The bridge, which is a marvel of construction, is made of carefully hewn stones and has three lovely arches. Jesus, Catherine says, is our bridge between heaven and earth. The stones are the precious virtues of Christ put together with the mortar of his precious blood. To cross the bridge we first embrace the feet of Christ. Then we move up to the second stage or arch and look into the wounded heart of Christ. Finally, we embrace the head and lips of Jesus, making his words and thoughts our own. When we have done so, we then begin to see things as God sees them. The silver eye of knowledge sees with love, its heart shaped pupil, and the result is that truth and love together enable us to see as the Trinity, symbolized by the triangle.
The two hearts drawn as mirror images represent Catherine’s extremely important mystical experience in which Christ replaced her heart with his own. In addition Catherine’s heart is on fire with the flames she says God enkindled there. And she is shedding tears for the five different kinds of tears she says we have to have to advance in the spiritual life.
The triple band around the drawing represents the pattern of the Dialogue, the pattern of an ardent petition from her, a response from God and then her overflowing gratitude.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux, 1873-1897
Feast Day October 1
The remarkable paradox of St. Thérèse’s life is that she teaches us to be childlike without being childish. In addition to her physical struggle with tuberculosis, she struggled against the type of co-dependency so often prevalent in cloistered women’s communities and she became herself at great cost. The way of spiritual childhood is not for the immature or the fainthearted.
Thérèse found her destination by reflecting on the mystical body of Christ and declaring that she had found her place. It was to be love in the heart of the Church.
She also found meaning in nature in seeing her “name” in the “T” of the stars in Orion’s belt. In considering herself a small flower in the garden of God. My mandala reflects this flower in bud form as she died so young. Not, however, without the wisdom of age. There are those who grow old and never gain wisdom and then there is Thérèse with the wisdom of the ancients when she was not even 25 and dying.
Mechthild of Magdeburg, 1207-1282
Feast Day November 19
St. Mechthild was remarkable in a number of ways. When she was 12 years old she had an apparent mystical experience of the Holy Spirit. While still in her teens she joined the Beguine’s, a group of laywomen pledged to community and the spiritual life. She also became a Dominican Tertiary and her Dominican Spiritual Director helped her write The Flowing Light of God.
In the last years of her life, she was exiled from the community and took refuge with the Cistercian Nuns at Helfta. Although she was almost totally blind, she added the last portion of her book there before she died at an advanced age. Mechthild wrote her theology in the vernacular being the first woman to do so and this created a venue for women doing theology in the common language of their people.
The image in the mandala is that of the overflowing Trinity whose presence is found in the Eucharist.
John of the Cross, 1524-1591
Feastday December 14
Teaching site for High School and College Theology: Scripture, Leadership in social Justice, Sacraments, EcoSpirituality, Ethics, World Religions, Saints
John writes of his experiences in creation, the crest is that of the Carmelite Reform with the stars showing the three ages of Carmelite presence. The book represents John’s writings undertaken with a flame of love. John of the Cross was one of the first men to join Teresa of Avila in the Carmelite Reform. Both are mystics and doctors of the Church. Whereas Teresa largely describes her personal experiences, John writes poetry and then prose to explain the poetry. It is only by reading between the lines so to speak that we get glimpses of John’s own mystical experiences. He describes both the ecstatic joy and the obstacles (which can be spiritual experiences themselves) that can keep someone from experiencing union with God. He is often depicted with a flame of fire in his chest as his last work on the mystical life is the Living Flame of Love. John uses imagery from nature to write about the spiritual life and it was in creation that he experienced great mystical graces.
Our Lady of Guadalupe
December 12
Our Lady’s Mandala
The mandala represents many features of Our Lady’s life. She is called the “Mystical Rose” (center). The wings represent the angel’s announcement to her when she became the mother of the Word Incarnate. The flames represent her presence at Pentecost. The stars in cross form represent both the birth of Jesus and his death/resurrection. The outer circle of roses represents Our Lady of Guadalupe—her gift to the indigenous people she was assisting. The Feastday of Our Lady of Guadalupe is December 12. It is the only image of Our Lady in her pregnancy. The black belt she wears signifies she is preparing to give birth. The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is very fitting for Advent.
John the Beloved
December 28
This image is the arch of John’s Gospel—the format in which he wrote his gospel which is that of a chiasm or arch. All the chapters on the left side lead up to the centerpiece, the Storm on the Sea. All the chapters on the right side complement the teaching on the first side and enhance it. The first creation is recalled in the Incarnation, the creating of light when the Word came to dwell with us on the left and the Resurrection when Jesus is lifted up is the full complement to the Incarnation and the new creation in the mind of John the Beloved.