JMJT! Praise be Jesus Christ! Now and Forever!
Happy Feast Day of St. Teresa of Jesus, Our Foundress! There are many things to celebrate as we think of this holy and yet down to earth saint who lived nearly 500 years ago. St. Teresa was brilliant despite being fairly uneducated, but more importantly she loved much and had a 'determined determination' that she would please God in all ways and attain to divine union with her Beloved, which she did achieve through His grace and her fiat. One of the great beauties of St. Teresa's legacy is that she is accessible. She uses images that everyone understands and can relate to, most especially in her Medieval time, with her use of castles, kings, water wells, diamonds, trees, and other objects found in nature and among the pots and pans. When we read her metaphors, we get it.
One metaphor that captivates me is her use of the butterfly. Perhaps one of her most memorable passages in Interior Castle is when she likens the change in the prayer of a soul from meditative to contemplative as to when a silk worm transforms into a lovely butterfly. She describes this process in a most eloquent way as follows,
"The silkworm symbolizes the soul which begins to live when, kindled by the Holy Spirit, it commences using the ordinary aids given by God to all, and applies the remedies left by Him in His Church, such as regular confession, religious hooks, and sermons; these are the cure for a soul dead in its negligence and sins and liable to fall into temptation. Then it comes to life and continues nourishing itself on this food and on devout meditation until it has attained full vigour, which is the essential point, p. 131 for I attach no importance to the rest. When the silkworm is full-grown as I told you in the first part of this chapter, it begins to spin silk and to build the house wherein it must die. By this house, when speaking of the soul, I mean Christ.
5. Forward then, my daughters! hasten over your work and build the little cocoon. Let us renounce
p. 132 self-love and self-will, 3 care for nothing earthly, do penance, pray, mortify ourselves, be obedient, and perform all the other good works of which you know. Act up to your light; you have been taught your duties. Die! die as the silkworm does when it has fulfilled the office of its creation, and you will see God and be immersed in His greatness, as the little silkworm is enveloped in its cocoon. Understand that when I say 'you will see God,' I mean in the manner described, in which He manifests Himself in this kind of union.
6. Now let us see what becomes of the 'silkworm,' for all I have been saying leads to this. As soon as, by means of this prayer, the soul has become entirely dead to the world, it comes forth like a lovely little white butterfly! 4 Oh, how great God is! How beautiful is the soul after having been immersed in God's grandeur and united closely to Him for but a short time! Indeed, I do not think it is ever as long as half an hour. 5 Truly, the spirit does not recognize itself, being as different from what it was as is the white butterfly from the repulsive caterpillar. It does not know how it can have merited so great a good, or rather, whence this grace came 6 which it well knows it merits not. The soul desires to praise our Lord God and longs to sacrifice itself and die a thousand deaths for Him. It feels an unconquerable desire for great p. 133 crosses and would like to perform the most severe penances; it sighs for solitude and would have all men know God, while it is bitterly grieved at seeing them offend Him... Oh, to see the restlessness of this charming little butterfly, although never in its life has it been more tranquil and at peace! May God be praised! It knows not where to stay nor take its rest; everything on earth disgusts it after what it has experienced, particularly when God has often given it this wine which leaves fresh graces behind it at every draught." [Interior Castle, Mansion V, Ch. 2] See http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/tic/tic14.htm
It is appropriate that St. Teresa refers to her favorite nuns as her 'butterflies' in several of her letters. [See Vol. I, Letters 119, 121, 147, & 154]. This was a code name that she used to describe her Discalced Carmelite nuns during the various times of tumult in establishing her reformed order and separating from the Calced or the Ancient Observance. It was a term she used with endearment and to symbolize the sweetness of prayer and union that she saw within her own order. To me, the butterfly also symbolizes true freedom in Christ. Once caged by its cocoon and unable to move or fly, the silkworm is transformed during his time of transformation into a beautiful creature who can freely travel and move from one flower to another. So it is with us. We sometimes experience imprisonment of body and/or spirit in which we are immobile and perhaps even paralyzed. Sometimes this is due to our own decisions and prisons that we make, whereas other times God allows it or captures us and puts us in a place where we can grow and experience a metamorphosis interiorly. During these times we must trust and seek metanoia, or a change within our hearts from a silkworm to a butterfly. We must listen and trust God during these moments in the cocoon of our souls.
St. Paul assures us in
his Letter to the Galatians that "in
Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have
clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor
free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ
Jesus. 29 If
you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and
heirs according to the promise. [Galatians 3:26-29]
He further expands upon this idea in the 4th and 5th chapters of Galatians when he explains, 4 What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. 2 The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. 3 So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces[a] of the world. 4 But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.[b] 6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba,[c] Father.” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir." and again, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery...13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh[a]; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as ourself.”[b] [Galatians 5:12-14]
So let us be free and embrace the daily opportunity to love God and our neighbor. Rich or poor, healthy or ill, male or female, black or white, we can all choose this. We have the holy freedom to do so, and can decide for or against it. St. Teresa reminds us that we are God's butterflies and He rejoices in us and seeks to have us alight on the one and only true vine, our Lord Jesus Christ.
He further expands upon this idea in the 4th and 5th chapters of Galatians when he explains, 4 What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. 2 The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. 3 So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces[a] of the world. 4 But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.[b] 6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba,[c] Father.” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir." and again, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery...13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh[a]; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as ourself.”[b] [Galatians 5:12-14]
So let us be free and embrace the daily opportunity to love God and our neighbor. Rich or poor, healthy or ill, male or female, black or white, we can all choose this. We have the holy freedom to do so, and can decide for or against it. St. Teresa reminds us that we are God's butterflies and He rejoices in us and seeks to have us alight on the one and only true vine, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Image taken from https://www.maryknollsisters.org/blogs/st-teresa-feast-day-joy-delight
In truth there is only one freedom - the holy freedom of Christ, whereby He freed us from sin, from evil, from the devil. It binds us to God. All other freedoms are illusory, false, that is to say, they are all, in fact, slavery.
(St. Justin Popovich, Ascetical and Theological Chapters, II.36) 43.
