Fire Within chapter 06

lengthy retrospective

Fire Within: Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross and the Gospel on Prayer (Fr. Thomas Dubay, S.M.) https://ignatius.com/fire-within-fwp/

(If you are catching up: chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 5)

Chapter 6: “The Teresian Mansions”

[Before a 7:00am Mass on Tuesday: Our Lady of Lourdes.]

Lord, when I read about — whenever I have read about — the outside of the castle and the first three mansions, I try to figure out: where was I? and when? and, Lord, I don't know whether this is useful to do in hindsight.

First, I was a child too young to know my left hand from my right.[1] Then, I was a child who obeyed for the approval of others. I am told[2] that I led a comrade[3] into what I must have known to be disobedience in order to see “what would happen if,” without consequences to myself for curiosity (this is a funny story about a child but it was wrong to have done). I was taught about God but I did not pray with regularity (save for when others around me led prayer: grace before meals). I was taught to go to church on Sundays, to enjoy singing hymns (I enjoyed singing anything), and to appreciate a well-written homily by an educated priest (this is snobbery[4]). I grew in years but not, seemingly, Lord, in wisdom.[5] I had[6] a Bible from my godmother (TEV, a rather odd translation) and once I determined [i.e. decided] to read it, but bogged down in the Old Testament in stories of lawless behavior. We also read simplified stories from the OT and the Gospels e.g. “The Boy Who Gave His Lunch Away”.[7] I received the sacraments [of initiation] according to the local schedule of the time (I think it is the same now). I was not taught to want to be a saint (tall poppy).

I was not Herod's wife to whom John the Baptist posed an existential threat (today's culture does contain such possibilities but mine was a simpler time) but like Herod, I “liked to listen to him speak” and then did whatever I wanted and ultimately allowed myself to be ruled by vanity, which is a prison: John was in prison but free; Herod who imprisoned him was not free but a slave to every man's thoughts.

[Top of page [LOL. I am proofreading now, and why did I think it necessary to type “Top of page” every time I turned a page while typing??]] This, it would seem, is to live life outside the castle entirely — see St. JHN sermon on Christians who are only following society's rules of their time [Sermon 10. Profession without Practice]. (Pause for Mass: Tue morning, Our Lady of Lourdes.)

[in red ink]

1. note carefully today's Gospel. [I.e. I am accusing myself of hypocrisy, above. https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021125.cfm in particular Mark 7:6-8. The crossreference is Isaiah 29:13.]

2. an examination of one's life is worth doing[8] b/c it reveals one's predominant fault: the weak point which the enemy will attack again[9] (ask for the corresponding virtue: to counter vanity, humility)
- What is the opposing virtue to a desire for physical comfort?

[back to black ink] — time for silent prayer (mandatory fun).

8AM: wedding bells for a soul leaving purgatory into the arms of the Beloved (folks had finished praying the rosary in the back of church). [There are always bells at 8am on a weekday, unless a lightning strike has disabled the electronics in the belltower recently, and there is always a rosary after the 7am Mass on a weekday.] Angels do not “get wings” (cf. some movie[10]) but we ought never to forget our suffering brothers and sisters, the souls who have chosen God and are being purified. The farther we advance in purification[11] in this life the more compassion we ought to have for them and the greater desire to come to their aid.

[Top of page] Thursday (See a reflection in my other journal. [I don't think I will, though.])

4:10pm — 20 min of adoration (after R. dentist and before I go home)! at St. B. hello! I am catching a cold — as You know — [actually, You knew it was COVID] ... I think the most important sections to know about are the third and fourth mansions and I do not know if I can say anything useful about them since for me it seemed that I had been figuratively pulled backward through a hedge into a place that I did not know existed. I think I was most recently writing about how I had lived as a “good girl” by the world's standards (i.e. having been asked out by a man I remained... faithful is a useless word here: “what is faith” Pilate might say. I remained exclusively available to him. That is putting a relationship w/ no expressed commitment by the man in the right terms. Lord, it says in the psalms somewhere (in a different context[12]) “I was no better than a beast in your sight”.) — I did not live by Your law, which exists for human flourishing, as I know (by reason and experience) now.

I broke off this relationship [eventually] for reasons which You know, but then almost immediately, it seems, having learned nothing, took up with another man on the same terms, which is to say, no terms. A cellphone provider [held up here as a model of temporary “commitment”] has a better contract than that. It was stupid, Lord, even on material grounds. [Top of page] But I did not understand my worth nor human dignity. If anything, I now valued myself less and thought it even more necessary to achieve an end which I had imagined would justify the means — yet in no other area of life would I have accepted the spurious argument that an end justifies evil means. I suppose I did not then grasp that an action can be evil (a sin) regardless of whether I see material harm to another[13] in it (the world would claim that two “consenting adults” etc.)

I felt guilty, however, as I must have known (after all, I sought an end to justify what was, on its own, not just; not righteous).

As for attending church only when one felt like it, or only when one was not traveling — I regret to say that I did not have any sense that this was profoundly wrong to do. Yet I think it was the more serious sin. My conscience was badly formed and I did not know it, nor did I understand my responsibility to reform it. (4:34pm [so much for “20” minutes]) What saved me was falling in with a good crowd rather than a worldly one; being around people who were better than me and who... how to put this? [here I went home]

(Fri 2/14/25 [top of page]) let me add that I committed other serious sins as well — it is not useful to make a catalog here. Lord, You provided me a sensible (having to do w/ senses) motivation to go to Mass, and allowed me to be moved even by vanity — that fault was mine, but You permitted it — to imagine that I might in any way be needed. In the choir I found good people — one was a fervent convert from whom I absorbed the idea that it is possible to follow the rules we are given. It is not that it was too hard but that it was not tried.[14]

Lord, I see this now again and again in my life: things I assumed would be too hard[15] and therefore I ruled them out without even an attempt! What kind of scientist am I?? to make assumptions w/o data? w/o an experiment? Lord, I am sorry. (I should write that I am in church before 7AM Mass — sitting apart b/c I have a cold that has gone immediately to my lungs.) Well, Lord, You will have to point out to me where I am still doing that b/c evidently I cannot see it on my own.

At any rate — eventually (years go by) it was evident to me that I ought to go to confession but I was afraid to, because I ought also to amend my life w/ regard to my remaining sins and this also I thought I would not be able to do; but You do not ask us to succeed! only to try! and I would not.

[top of page] Lord, You have been very patient with me. So then here I was: eventually planning a wedding [with an agnostic man], and then consenting to children on my terms not Yours — this I knew by then to be wrong — I am sorry for my hardness of heart. I was afraid, and this is a further self-condemnation since love drives out fear; I cannot say that I loved You very much, from the evidence of my actions. I bought a catechism [in person at a Barnes & Noble; I still have it; this would have been before moving to the south suburbs] but did not read it because it would have said that a person in serious sin is not to present herself for communion. This ignorance was by then willful. It is the enemy who whispers to us (in collusion with the flesh) that “it would be too hard”.

You freed me, Lord, from the snare of the fowler[16] but I am not done describing the low point. It pleased You to give me one of these little ones for only a short time; he or she died after we had heard a heartbeat and so I was sent for a diagnostic ultrasound where I saw a very little baby who was not moving, the tech left the room + [eventually] sent in someone w/ the authority to say why. During this time a person knows something is wrong (just as I knew that reading the catechism would have told me about mortal sin, yet already I knew my life was wrong — that this was the wrong way to live) [Top of page] You, however, raised my soul from this death[17] but I resisted for several more years Your efforts to do so: You who made all things, unresistingly [well of course they can't resist if they don't exist yet], w/ a word, allow Your creatures to tell You “no”!

The child after this — (bell for Mass)

[after Mass] (note the readings [ https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021425.cfm ]: the Fall; “Ephphatha”: You opened my ears to hear Your word and my mouth to speak Your praise) — I was going to jump ahead but I ought to say first the only overtly spiritual writer I had [at the time and indeed for the next six years] was C.S. Lewis. I actually did want a book on how to pray but [on that subject] had only his “Letters to Malcolm” which I did not find helpful. [I recall some notion of decorating the Our Father with thoughts. Had anyone ever taught me to pray the rosary? I am guessing not; and I would certainly not have found it recommended by him.] This was in 2007 I suppose... So then grieving I read his book on grief (A Grief Observed).

What haunted me was that I do not know what happens to the soul of a child who died before birth, since they are not baptized nor could they have been (there are many such but I cared only about mine: would I meet him or her in heaven? the Church does not say, and to me what the Church says is what is true, and so I did not know) but, Lord, You know I ought to have been greatly concerned for the state of my own soul... I think my state of mind was presumption: that someday I would amend my life when it was easier; when I was past childbearing for example. (What nonsense — what a fool — and a coward.)

[Top of page] But how is any of this related to prayer?, when I took time apart in secret to grieve [having two young children I did not cry in front of them] and to assent to the Church's teaching of NOT KNOWING although that is painful (not the assurance of “a little angel” practiced by most people I at the time associated with... I do not know their personal beliefs) — this I suppose was prayer? To love truth more than comfort, in one thing at least, is not bad. Still desiring a child to be “the youngest” but also now very anxious, in this next pregnancy I investigated what I supposed to be the overblown claims of medical self hypnosis and bought a used set of Hypnobabies CDs — if nothing else I expected this to help me cope with anxiety (one of the CDs was positive affirmations). One had always been told “after you hear the heartbeat” your worries are over. The first time I tried the self hypnosis CD it was evident that it was not “woo-woo” but actually works (Lord, I ought in the same spirit [to] have tried the things that I thought would be too hard — not only things that I thought simply would not work but cost little to try.)

This then meant spending time — not in silence — but at least learning to relax and to trust.

For years afterward I also had a cure for mild insomnia and I also noticed that I had stopped biting my nails (a habit that I had never been able to break was simply gone.) [Top of page] This latter is a foreshadowing.

I would not say that this practice was prayer, but, Lord, I do not know Your opinion of it. It was a foundation later for a habit of prayer. But I have to write that then I did a bad thing [this is the “low point” I referred to earlier]; I did not have my youngest child baptized until he was almost seven. I cannot decipher my motivation so I will leave it at that. The first time I was pregnant [i.e. 6(?) years earlier] I left the choir (can't play guitar while round) and then we moved to a suburban parish where I had no Catholic friends — for a long time ... and we know, O Lord, that my friends in the choir [who also had graduated and moved elsewhere] would not have let me do this. I am sorry. The enemy begins with some reasonable objection to “now” and once something has been postponed it is not difficult for him to get it put into the “too hard” bucket. My mother [very patient and always kind] eventually pointed out that if I did not do it now it would be even harder and so finally I did... I am grateful to her, Lord. [He was baptized at my parish church before age 7: not long before.] This baptism, although I did not know it at the time, was at the start of the Jubilee Year of Mercy and it was very much a year of mercy for me. You give to a Christian parent the grace to raise a child in the faith. What happened next was very shortly after, and this is what I cannot explain.

[Top of page] Having no regular life of prayer (I took myself + the kids to Sunday Mass [at some ages and stages their father also came to help me] and to holy days of obligation, and prepared them for the sacraments although I was afraid to go to confession) — I looked ahead to the Christmas trip to visit family a day's drive away (recall the liturgical year starts w/ Advent) and how much of a trial of my patience I knew it would be; and a coworker had just broadly recommended a book on secular “meditation”[18] which was supposed to reduce stress [and make people more productive; companies loved this idea]. Recalling the experiment of medical self hypnosis I again made an experiment w/ what I thought would be “woo-woo” that does nothing. But TO YOU what was it? An opportunity!

Lord, my pen is out of ink. [Continuing in red ink] I made very sure that it was not something contrary to the faith — the book was presented as totally independent of any belief system (being written [by an engineer] for engineers — anyone writing for engineers assumes they are a pack of atheists but we know otherwise) [19]. And I committed to spending a fixed period of time in silence daily, neither thinking about anything nor making an effort “not to think” but just letting thoughts drain out of one's head like emptying a pool. In hindsight I can only assume that You were willing to consider this prayer? — Specifically I think so because of 1. my overtly stated reason [i.e. my intent was to become more patient and more charitable and God apparently accepted this intent] + 2. the result. [It is by the fruits of prayer that we judge the quality of prayer, according to St Teresa.]

[Top of page] I found it peaceful and desirable from the start [20]. Although there [were] distractions this was expected and it was made plain [in books] that “success” consists only of showing up and not what happens or how it feels at the time... I looked for more books and found “Wherever You Go, There You Are” which said that a practice of daily setting time aside to meditate is a cost and in order to persevere it's necessary to have a clear idea of “why am I doing this”. It seemed to me that this question was posed by You, and I answered it to You: to become better at loving my neighbor. (i.e. from the start [late December], my intent was to be more patient and this is a generalization of that [early February].) I did not KNOW, Lord, that the first step is to love GOD [21] and THEN this overflows into love of neighbor, and so what happened after that was surprising to me because “I had not asked for it” (I HAD, but did not see how, until later.)

Meanwhile I read more books — did not want to veer into Buddhism [having discovered, by reading, that corporate-promoted meditation books are thinly concealed Buddhism]; thought it might be okay to read about Zen as practiced by Americans [because they discuss “what” happens but not “why”]; ended up at Thomas Merton (as one does[22]) and, b/c You seized an opportunity in a bookstore, I also read Confessions of St. Augustine. Meanwhile on the [internal] social media in my company, I was reporting to any followers on this experiment, [Top of page] which I thought wholly separate from faith + religion, subjects too private for me to share at work.

Imagine my confusion WHEN after reading a book by a protege of Merton I tried another experiment in it (Finley — James Finley. I do not have the book + did not write what the experiment was but it would have been billed as Christian, and possibly as prayer) — this certainly was prayer and it was one single experience that turned everything on its head [Science! It works!]. Having always believed in God by faith, Lord, I — ... You were pleased to give me an experiential certainty.

I shuttered [i.e. announced an end to] the posting on my experiment. It was not what I had thought, at all, [23] and it was now far too personal to talk about. Even now, Lord, knowing that I am writing to You for others to read, it seems that it is too hard to write. I was willing to journal about meditation (which already had done some very interesting things to me: for example I was no longer ever bored) but it was impossible to write for others about prayer which is an intimate relationship with You [also, let’s be honest: at work I was afraid to be openly known as a Christian]. And I had discovered that You had been there the entire time like a parent watching a sick child sleep: opening her eyes (or like the daughter of Jairus) she sees: to be clear what I did wasn't see.

[Top of page] I think by then I had been to confession once? I'll look over the timeline.[24] I had not amended my life, but had confessed the sins of my past life: what I was still doing was to consent to the use of condoms. I was afraid to do what I knew I ought b/c I was afraid in the worst case this would break the relationship [i.e. result in divorce].

It was only through prayer, regular prayer after this, in which You poured love into me like four pounds of sugar in a two pound sack (extravagantly and overwhelmingly) that in time I received the courage to do it anyway; I went to confession a 2nd time (and weekly thereafter) and [at home in private] promptly had the conversation that I thought might result in the worst case and, although it was a slow crumbling that at first appeared not to have gone badly at all, that [i.e. worst case] is exactly what happened and the best possible thing. Was it hard — yes — it is still hard — but it has seemed to me that the alternative is death, and what I chose is life.

But this is why I don't know the ordinary progression of prayer, Lord; You pulled me backward through a hedge into a more beautiful part of reality and I don't know how one would ordinarily get there, except that it is always You who does it. [Maybe this means the ordinary way is to be pulled forward through a hedge. Ha. I assume it would normally be by means of the rosary.]

[Top of page] In the same way that I discovered I was no longer biting my nails, I found that, after a while, You had broken my attachment to fiction (books, movies) and I had no idea that such things were possible (D— himself had told someone [from whom I heard it later] he thought I would surely not move out b/c he knew I could not leave a room full of books behind — but he knew only the old me.)

You can in a moment snap the thickest chain we have forged for ourselves + can do so even if we had no thought of breaking it.

I had by then, or not long after, read St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross and so it was very clear what had happened to me after it had happened — this interval (of which I am only giving highlights) was the night of sense after which one's habitual prayer is infused contemplation and sometimes, as the author [Dubay] says, ligature — the will is captivated like a guest at a party and the rest of the faculties are left outside like a dog, waiting patiently for the will to come back out... they do not know what is going on in there. [In some later mansion they are at the party also.] Also sometimes a person is [i.e I was] abruptly unable to move (this would happen e.g. while reading the Gospels, something I now did for fun) and the will is Party Cat[25] and a person waits [i.e. I waited] for a very long 5 minutes. [26] [Like, literally I timed it, because I am by temperament a scientist conducting experiments. On herself.]

[Top of page] I was extremely puzzled how any of this could have happened while I was still in (before amending, or torpedoing, my life) a state of serious sin, but it seems that otherwise I could not have gotten out, and so, Lord, i will only thank You for Your great mercy towards me (Your very unworthy servant.) You, as I said, freed me from the snare of the fowler (as we pray in night prayer) and I suppose there was no other way than to skip ahead in line. There are much better people than me, Lord; I see them at any daily Mass; they pray the rosary; they go to confession; why me and not them? why am I now in a state in which I CANNOT, without distracting myself deliberately, pray the rosary? I have no idea. However, how can I be other than convinced that this path truly is open to anyone willing to be set on it? [As noted, it is God who puts people on it.] (FIN. 8:54 am [Friday 2/14 after Mass.])

[In blue gel-pen at home, immediately after] (To be clear, I can begin a rosary; it is just that I cannot finish one in any ordinary amount of time [i.e. if I really want to pray an entire 5 decades I have to do it while walking, which I have done many times, and not think about it very much. There are occasional exceptions.] In a group what it looks like is that I stop responding after a while; if someone tagged me to lead a decade then I lead that one [with childlike enthusiasm] and then about 1/3 of the way through the next one fall silent again.) e.g., [on my own at home] “I believe in God” -> pause to adore Him (or maybe in 1st decade.) [Top of page] This doesn't seem to happen to other people and I don't know why. [This never fails to result in my confusion since looking at my life I do not appear to myself to be a good person.]

[in pencil at home, not long after] The first rule of Fight Club though [I saw the movie when it came out and cannot recommend it] is that you do not talk about Fight Club (one ought to [talk about the interior life of prayer] with one's spiritual director and one ought to have one of those) and for good reason. I know I am not the only very odd duck in Pittsburgh but if there were many, the world would look different (how could it not?) [i.e. because this type of prayer has outward effects on a person: the fruits by which one judges it.]

What we ought to do is to respond generously to God and to be aware of what to do in order to do that, which is much different (much less and much more) than we think. We will be repaid IN THIS LIFE, let alone the next, FAR MORE than we can imagine.

It is my duty to let people know that You do this, and that they ought not to be afraid, in light of how often and how long I fell to the temptation of believing something would be too hard. In the moment there is always grace.

---

[1] probably I am thinking of the second reading in Office of Readings for St Francis Xavier.

[2] by parents. I don't remember it so I assume “for me it was Tuesday” (and for my brother also) https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ButForMeItWasTuesday but for my parents it was not.

[3] my immediate younger brother

[4] I accuse myself.

[5] here I am thinking of Luke 2:52 https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/2?52

[6] still do because of sentiment

[7] out of print I assume https://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Gave-Lunch-Away/dp/0570060273

[8] here I am answering “whether this is useful” which I asked in the first paragraph.

[9] here I am thinking of one of St Ignatius of Loyola's rules for the first week; it is the 14th rule (there are 14 for the first week.)

[10] I have never sat down to watch It's A Wonderful Life from start to end.

[11] here I am thinking of St. John of the Cross writing about the passive purification

[12] https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/73?22 I was cherrypicking one verse.

[13] clearly there was material harm to me in hindsight

[14] Here I am thinking of a Chesterton quote. Looking it up now: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” This is slightly different than what I was thinking about unless we consider “found” to be equivalent to “imagined”.

[15] here I am not thinking about repentance but some small ordinary penance which I consider “impossible” and then two years later try for the duration of Lent and it was fine really.

[16] Psalm 91 — I was thinking of Night Prayer. The corresponding Talbot song played on my car stereo on the way home after Mass

(it is not as “what are the odds?!” as it sounds since the phone app had been building a playlist from another Talbot song on the way there, which I use for a 6am alarm.)

[17] i.e. a state of presumably-mortal sin

[18] A few months later I would describe this book as “Buddhism with the serial numbers vigorously filed off” i.e. the book (knowingly) gives directions for a practice that in Buddhism is intended to achieve something specific but the book does not mention what that is and instead promotes it as achieving some other thing. This is like using a medication for off-label purposes (e.g. a side effect is an appetite suppressant? Market it as a diet pill!) and, for so many reasons (1. it does what it says on the tin, only the label has been taken off of the tin, this is a bit dangerous don't you think?; 2. if it were known to be Buddhism, Catholics ought not to do it), I cannot recommend it. I want to make that quite clear.

[19] I was typing all of this in on Friday from a notebook, and stopped for the night here, because I did not feel well (and in fact was running a fever and tested positive for COVID Saturday morning. It is Saturday now and I “am not exactly working on all thrusters” as Dr. McCoy says somewhere.)

[20] Here I am recalling that another book “WYGTYA” made such a point of the need for a strong motivation leading me in hindsight to suspect that most people would have found it boring and a chore initially, and that this is significant. There were some hard or boring parts later, sure.

[21] the commandment to love God was habitually very far from my mind at the time, perhaps because it was easy to imagine “of course I love God (for an hour a week and the rest of my time is my own)”.

[22] he is a bridge, and a bridge is a two-way street: you could encounter him (or Finley) while farther from the faith, and cross the bridge towards the faith, or you could go the other direction which would be a bad idea. I left behind or gave away all of these bridge books, which is why I cannot look up Finley.

[23] At this point I had the correct frame of reference for what had already happened in early June. After this I quit “meditating” (in the secular or thinly-veiled-Buddhism sense, in which one does not put oneself in the presence of God) and began “praying” only, which is to say, spending time in silence in the presence of God, intentionally in relationship with Him. In for a penny, in for a pound, so I also started praying the rosary more often than never.

[24] First confession was in Lent 3/4; I read Confessions of St. Augustine in April; in May I found references to Merton everywhere so I read him; things happened in early June that I did not expect; “Reading the awakening call [sic]. Decided to follow directions in the evening” on 6/27. Also my notes from that spring say that my intention in February was actually “to become a better Christian”... my memory is wrong I guess. Certainly I was determined not to pursue anything contrary to the faith. The second confession and amendment of life was 7/28.

[25] At the time I tried to make sense of “the will is apparently at a party, and the rest of the faculties are not only shut out, but also, astonished to discover they are not actually the boss of the will which is not persuaded by any of their arguments” https://web.archive.org/web/20090514010140/https://nedroid.com/2009/05/party-cat-full-series/

[26] After this began to happen, I tried to suss out (gather data on) whether what St Teresa writes about was commonplace, without asking any direct questions but only observing whether e.g. any daily Mass attendees seemed to be (in a word) in ecstasy. In the Novus Ordo it seemed to me that this would be immediately evident because they would not move and there is a lot of “stand, sit, stand, kneel, stand again, kneel”. It was extremely trying to me to think that someone might notice if I missed a cue. My observation of others was very ineffective, though, since I habitually sat in the front pew (my parish priest, to whom I had asked some direct practical questions in private, said that a simple solution to my anxiety would be to sit in the back; however, I liked being closer to the altar more than I liked not being anxious). Similarly in a group rosary I would expect people's voices to drop in and out (as they became more or less too-absorbed-in-prayer-to-speak) and I have not generally observed this, but I think it would be easy to overlook. Because Bl. Solanus Casey was said to have been observed in full ecstasy, and was a Capuchin, at one point I also asked (among other priests) two local Capuchins whether they could discuss infused contemplation with me (this plan made sense to me at the time. Right??) One of them handed me off to the other, and the other assumed at first I was taking a class and wanted help with homework (I think in hindsight this does answer the question whether something is commonplace) so he was a bit prickly at first. This (well, the entire early stages of my quest for a spiritual director before I figured out that there are things I should not say out of the blue) is perhaps the most socially awkward thing I have ever done.