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Rating:  - Heavenly Work, Not-so-Heavenly Translation
This is one of the best works in the Catholic Christian literature. However, this particular translation is not a good translation from the Spanish; it is not entirely accurate. E. Allison Peers does a much better job translating and her translation is better spiritually.
Rating:  - Amazing Woman for Your Spiritual Journey
This book will introduce you to St. Teresa through passages such as her visions of angels, her vision of Christ, and the stages of contemplative prayer. Her writing is simple and easy to follow, but has great depth to it. The person beginning a life of prayer is presented as a gardener who must care for his or her garden so that it will bloom with flowers and good scents. Once the garden is well cared for, God will come to enjoy the garden. Eventually, a life of contemplative prayer, she writes, will climax to union and then ecstasy . Of remarkable beauty is her first vision of Christ, which is a vision of just His hands. The next vision is of His face. Even if you do not believe in such things or want to follow a path as intense as hers, her story is still incredible and worth the read. It is also an exhilarating read if you enjoy autobiographies.
Rating:  - A Humble Life
St. Teresa's autobiography records her life up to the age of fifty. She is a simple woman, her writing not being anything more that the thoughts that come to her mind. She states in the letter that accompanied this work to Friar Garcia De Toledo that "Some things...may be badly expressed, and others put down twice, for I have had so little time for the task that I have not been able to reread what I have written." In spite of this, St. Teresa reveals mystical and spiritual wonders in beautiful description. Rather than a history of her works and the events that determine her worldly life, this book is more of a spiritual autobiography. She recounts her childhood desires and the early yearning of her soul to be with God. She talks of her illnesses and how she came closer to God through them. St. Teresa gives her description of different levels of prayer, which appear in both the Way of Perfection and the Interior Castle. She tells of the ways in which God spoke to her, at first in subtle manners to more salient ones later in her life. She received an increased number of visions as she advanced spiritually. God also begins to speak to her more directly. All this comforted her and guided her as she established the convent of St. Joseph's at Avila. In the convent's establishment, St. Teresa describes the opposition that she faced and her financial worries. Endowed with a will to reject the things of this world, she pressed on, setting a rule of poverty for her Avilan sisters. Throughout The Life, she wanders from her main point to give her understanding of several spiritual matters. The book is also permeated with her humility and self-abasement. Reading through this autobiography will benefit anyone wishing to read the Way of Perfection or the Interior Castle, her two other most notable works.
Rating: - A beautiful read!
Let me say right off that this was my first experience reading any of the writings of Teresa de Jesus (her chosen name) so I can't compare it to others.
Teresa's writing style was a mixture of the style of the time (full of disclaimers and self-deprecation) and the romantic language of the books of chivalry she loved as a child (she referred to God as "His Majesty", and used images such as castles and jewels). The result, flowing from her pen in an often (I should say usually) disorganized fashion, is fresh and touching. I particularly enjoyed her description of the soul as a garden: the Lord plants it, but we are to cultivate it in order that our Lord may take His delight in walking in it. She describes prayer as the water that nourishes that garden: first through great labor drawn from a well, but later as a free gift from God showering down from heaven. Her more developed description, covering four stages of prayer, is remarkable. HOWEVER, this does not make it the best starting place for beginners who want to learn how to approach contemplative prayer (they might do better with Brother Lawrence, Thomas Keating, or some of Thomas Merton's work).
I respect this translator, who included an excellent description on the decision-making process used in producing the translation, along with many footnotes referring to alternate interpretations and original Spanish text for concepts difficult to translate.
A personal quirk of mine which should influence no one (but I have to say it) -- I hated the cover art. While it communicates Teresa's vivacious personality, it is frankly ugly, and all who knew Teresa agreed that she was in fact physically beautiful. I know we shouldn't judge by physical appearance, but if God gives someone the gift of physical beauty why portray them as ugly? Again, my personal quirk meaning nothing.
Approach this read less as an educational experience and more as an opportunity to draw inspiration, hope and solace from the heart of Teresa: a woman who, weak and human as we all are, allowed God to transform her because of her hunger for communion with Him.
Rating: - Was it live or memorex?
Middle ages religious beliefs were so strong that people, would risk torture rather than renounce their faith. St. Teresa was a contemporary of Machiavelli; he was considered a "modern" man while she was more medieval. AS a short back grounder to get a better appreciation of the book and a flavor of the context, Monasticism was a dynamic movement of the Middle Ages; religious souls wanting to withdraw from the sinful world and devote themselves to God. There was also a move from the hermit saint to a more cooperative movement (St. Benedictine). First Benedictine Pope saw how effective these groups were within society. Separation between cultural leadership (church, monastery) and political leadership (barbarian kings). Moreover, Reform movements within the church came within the monastic community. Moreover, this was also a period when the Virgin Mary becomes an important figure; savior of the hopelessly lost souls. St. Bernard is torn between inner worship and outer manifestation of faith. St. Teresa conceived idea of theologian/preachers who would be committed to poverty but would go out into the world and later followed by the age of song, southern troubadours, knighthood, idealization of women, growth of reason. Enter into all this, one Teresa of Avila - with her mystical tendencies. What were we to do with her? Both now and then. The only way to really engage is to suspend belief and allow for the mystical qualities of a mystical connection to God to take over - if even for a brief moment. To run counter and be cynical from the get go will destroy the experience. We should have a look see with a child's eye and innocence and even if we leave jaded, at least we can say we tried. I marvel at the woman and I am left wondering by the entire episode, sometimes even scared to re-read it. How is Teresa's description of union, rapture and ecstasy, and her description of her love of god, different from Plato's search for beauty? Was she a hero? A little Padre Pio cum Joan of Arc? Judge for yourself. It will leave no one unchanged.
Miguel Llora
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