Born in 1515, just two years before the start of the Protestant reformation, Teresa of Ávila was a Church reformer, theologian, spiritual leader, and mystic. She entered the Carmelites at the age of 20 against the wishes of her Father. She experienced great physical and spiritual challenges in her first years as a nun. She aimed to reform the Carmelite order to bring them back to the simplicity and humility of their origin as hermits on Mount Carmel in the Holy Land. However, she received great resistance to these reforms to the Carmelite order, leading to the establishment of a new religious order, the discalced or barefoot Carmelites. She is the author of The Way of Perfection and the Interior Castle, two towering works in Catholic spirituality. She died in the year 1582 at the age of 67. Right now, there are around 2,300 monks and sisters in the original Carmelite order, and around 16,000 monks and nuns in the Discalced Carmelites. She was named a doctor of the Church in 1970 by Pope Paul VI, alongside St Catherine of Siena; they were the first women to receive such a designation in the Church. I visited the city of Avila last month as part of our pilgrimage, the fourth time I have been there. The city of Avila has one of the best preserved medieval walls surrounding a city in all of Europe. Teresa’s presence is still very much felt in this city many centuries after her death. As a member of the secular Carmelites here in the Diocese of Jackson, I very much experience Teresa of Avila and her spirituality.
Jesus is very hard on the Pharisees in today’s Gospel. In fact, in a lot of our Gospel readings this week, he is very critical of them. He tells them that they invent all of these external things for themselves to follow, yet in their words and their actions, charity of heart and love of God are not very evident. It is a tough balance, isn’t it, living our faith in our modern world. As a priest, I am called to a life of prayer, I am called to practice social justice, I am called to celebrate the sacraments with my congregation and to minister to them in different ways, to carry out my roles as vicar general and in my different ministries. And it is hard balancing all these things a lot of the time. I cannot devote myself to just one of those things and ignore the rest. I am sure it is a big challenge for all of you as well, balancing your life of faith. But that is the challenge we have to meet on our journey.
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