Questions from Philly planner

[Donald Schell]

A little more on Avila:

The Carmelite convent where Teresa became a nun is outside the walls of
Avila.  We walked down to it, and the distance I remember would seem slight
to a pilgrim (our guidebook recommended a taxi).  This was the Carmelite
convent Teresa first entered and eventually left to found her reformed
order, but finally returned to head as Superior as the reform was spreading
in the order - that is the convent she left finally became a reformed
Carmelite house.

When she returned she appointed Juan de la Cruz as chaplain to the
community.  We found the sisters quite welcoming.  There is a tour (in
Spanish) that was interesting and quite enjoyable.  I got a little of the
feeling of the gentility and comfort that noble nuns expected in Teresa's
time from seeing things like the cells with an adjoining room for the
servant and hearing about the afternoon teas the nuns gave that were
salon-like events - gentleman callers, witticisms and poetry.  Seeing this
provided a context for Teresa's desire to simplify and find a more austere,
more direct way to pray and listen for God's voice and presence.

Various parts of the convent are identified with specific visions Teresa
describes in her writing, including  the stairway where Teresa ascending
said she met a vision of a toddler Jesus (the child wandering down the
stairs certainly unexpected in the convent).  She stopped and he asked her,
"Who are you?"
"Teresa de Jesus," Teresa says she replied, "and who are you?"
"Jesus de Teresa," the child responded.

They have a museum with artifacts of Juan and Teresa and a relic of Teresa.
The original of Juan's wonderful little ink drawing that Salvador borrowed
(for its from above perspective) in "Christ of John of the Cross" is there.
So is a the seat he used for listening to confessions.  As I remember they
have Teresa's hand or perhaps a finger that Franco had taken and kept.
Teresa's cell is now a sort of shrine off the somewhat later chapel.

I think I also remember there was a second convent inside the city walls,
the first of her reformed houses where she went with a little group of
Carmelites to begin the reformed order.   I'm remembering and picturing it
as inside the city walls, but it's possible I'm mis-remembering it and that
it was actually in another city.

I believe we also saw the de Avila family house with its crest.  I picture
the place in my mind with the story of Teresa slipping off (against her
family's wishes) to join the convent is that as she was getting into the
carriage (her father's that she had more or  less commandeered), a passing
galant praised her elegant ankles.  And the young, lovely (and still
somewhat vain) Teresa laughed and taunted him saying it was the last he'd
see of them since she was joining a convent.

Teresa and Juan both traveled all over Spain in their work of establishing
the reform, and usually on foot.  Knowing that felt different to me after
walking the pilgrimage, getting the sense of distances and great open spaces
and rough terrain.  I think I'd pictured more of a country stroll.   And
their choice to walk was significant.  The more conventional (unreformed)
religious would have ridden - like the monks riding mules that Don Quixote
met, but that's another story.

love,
donald