Saint Teresa of Avila (Oct. 15)

Saint Teresa, Patron Saint of the loss of parents, please protect and watch over everyone who is struggling with the loss of a loved one, we pray to you Lord, Amen.

Brooke D.

Teresa is one of the foremost writers on mental prayer, and her position among writers on mystical theology is unique. In all her writings on this subject she deals with her personal experiences. Her deep insight and analytical gifts helped her to explain them clearly. Her definition was used in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "Contemplative prayer [oración mental] in my opinion is nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us." (Source: Catholics Online)

St. Teresa of Avila, patron saint of bodily ills, loss of parents, people in need of Grace, religious orders and founder the disgraced Carmelites. Pray for everyone who has a bodily ill or knows somebody with a bodily ill and that they will get better soon. Pray for those who have lost their parents and that they find their way back on the right path. St. Teresa we pray to you that you will help others in need who have lost a parent, have a bodily ill, in need of grace, or in the religious order.  Amen. 

 Caroline M.

 

"Mindfulness is known as sati in Buddhist writings in the dead language Pali. It is joined with two other qualities: sampajañña “altertness” and atappa, “being intent on what you’re doing”. All three together form the virtue of “appropriate attention”.   In Buddhism, in a nutshell, there is agnosticism about the “self”: about whether the soul is the same as the body, for example. For the Buddha, a well-taught disciple “regards feeling thus: 'This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.’”

 

What has this got to do with St. Teresa’s practice of oración mental, mental prayer? She called this prayer trato con Dios, conversing or having communion with God, “with the one we know loves us”. She is not interested in speculating intellectually about God, even less in those distractions of the mind, like “unquiet little gnats, which buzz and whizz by night, here and there”." Source: Telegraph