3 May 2020 From the Desk of Father Raaser
A copy of that prayer has been on my desk for many years. It puts everything in proper perspective. It originally was written as a poem. It was only discovered after her death, in her prayer book. It is called 'Saint Teresa's Bookmark’, it is better known as the Serenity Prayer of St. Teresa of Avila. St. Teresa of Avila became the first woman Doctor of the Church. A Doctor of the Church is a saint whose writings should be particularly read, studied and reflected upon. St. Teresa was gifted with many things, but her greatest contribution to the Church was her treatise on the life of prayer, in her famous book The Interior Castle. St. Teresa achieved what most of us can only imagine, an intimate union with Christ. She had many moments of religious ecstasies, which often times caused her to levitate. She was born Teresa Sanchez de Cepeda y Ahumada on March 28, 1515 in Avila, Spain. At the time of her birth, the Spanish were still fighting the Moors, the Protestant Reformation was about to start, and Columbus had just discovered the New World. She was too “vain” to be a wife and didn’t particularly like kids she wrote; so she entered the Carmelite Nuns and spent the next twenty years or so living a rather mediocre spiritual life. Part of the problem was that the Carmelites at the time were very lax in their prayer and community life. But for St. Teresa, being lukewarm in prayer was torture. She felt as if her soul was in prison and longed to break free. She tried to call her sisters to a life of discipline and prayer, but she was punished even imprisoned in her own convent. At the age of 43, Teresa would leave her order and form a new Discalced (meaning without shoes-they would walk barefoot) Carmelite Order. Like the great reformers before her, she wanted to return her religious sisters back to the basics of Christian tenets, of poverty, chastity and simplicity, so they could grow spiritually. She would found new convents all over Europe and play a pivotal role in the Counter Reformation. She died at the age of 67, but not before she suffered greatly at the hands of her own sisters. It was living out her difficult life, a thirst for union with the Lord that St. Teresa could write such a beautiful and meaningful poem/prayer. Like her protégé, St. John of the Cross, who also suffered greatly in his reform of the male Carmelites, from the suffering and the darkness of their souls, great and beautiful light shone. For our times I think the center of the prayer is: “Patience obtains all things.” Patience is the virtue that is hard to hold onto, especially during tough times. We grow very tired and very impatient at times like this. Patience however, is part of the cardinal virtue of Fortitude-strength. We know so well that life is tough, hard, and unfair at times; life is difficult. Bad things do indeed happen to good people. Patience and fortitude---obtains all the right things, things that truly matter—spiritual riches, enlightenment, God Himself. ‘Whoever has God lacks nothing.’ All material things, even this world, will come to an end. And we are experiencing today, that in a twinkling of an eye, our life can change dramatically, but God alone remains … and suffice. When we are worried, anxious, or growing impatient especially with the ones we love, say this prayer; it will help us get through these difficult days and grant us true serenity.