About Praying with Teresa of Avila
The path to union with God is attained through interior prayer. It is the characteristic way of prayer of Saint Teresa of Avila’s reformed Carmel and is practiced two hours daily by all Discalced Carmelites.
Interior prayer introduces us into the halls of the palace of the Divine King found within ourselves and from where His loving presence is communicated. This way of prayer welcomes God who wants to give Himself to us without reserve.
For many, mystical life is reduced to extraordinary phenomena which are accidental and unnecessary. In reality, this life is none other than the fulfillment of Baptismal graces; an increase in the virtues of faith, hope and charity in the heart of him who believes that the Kingdom of God is found within (see Luke 17: 20-21).
St. Teresa tells us that this path of interior prayer is the Royal Road to Heaven offering a Treasure for the soul who pursues it. It is not a path reserved for a few elite. It is open to all the baptized. All are invited to share in mystical life for which interior prayer is the vital nourishment.
Praying with Teresa of Avila was developed to give you some easy-to-use tools to learn to practice Teresian prayer yourself and then to bring it to the people in the pews.
Just pick up these simple tools and use them to begin this journey inward to the heart through the regular practice of Saint Teresa of Avila's way of prayer.
About the Author
I have been a member of the Secular Order of Carmel since March 2010. As of December 2015, I have been a member of the Secular Community in Fredrick MD. It was here that the opportunity presented itself to offer the communities’ six week course, A Surge in Prayer, in parishes in Washington DC and Virginia. Up until this point, the presentation of the program had been strictly limited to Maryland parishes.
The call to Carmel came in Lent 2010 when a Carmelite Friar, a visiting priest at St. James parish in Falls Church VA, told me on Friday, February 19, 2010, that the Carmelite path was a path of deep silence. Shaken to the depths of my being by the remark, I instantly knew that this was my path, though at the time I had never even heard of the Carmelites nor did I have any idea what they were all about.
The friar’s passing remark continued to resonate within me. Three weeks later, on Saturday, March 13, 2010, I attended my first meeting of the secular Carmelite community of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross at the Discalced Carmelite monastery on Lincoln road in Washington DC.
I made my temporary promise on Trinity Sunday, June 19, 2011. The first year and a half was a happy time as a secular Carmelite. I read the Carmelite Saints in French, having lived several years in French-speaking countries. But things began to change in July 2011. Though I was learning a lot about Carmel, I wasn’t finding the deep silence that had been promised me by the Carmelite friar. Though I tried to dismiss this restlessness, it only increased. I left Carmel ‘definitively’ in April 2015 and thus began the quest for the path of deep silence. Oddly enough, it was in exiting Carmel that I made a lifelong commitment to the Order!
This quest for deep silence led me back to the Carmelite Community in Toulouse, France in July 2015 where in 2014, I had discovered the rapid proliferation of schools of Teresian (of Avila) prayer and Friends of Carmel groups sprouting up in parishes throughout France; thus began an on-going translation project along with an intensive study of St. Teresa of Avila. I had at last found the path of deep silence.
The result of this translation endeavor has been a return to Carmel and provided me the opportunity to teach this path of deep silence (Teresian prayer) in parishes and to Secular Carmelites in the Washington DC area.
As part of a military family, I lived in several countries, settling in Washington DC with my family in 1968. I attended both high school and college in the area. Upon graduation, I lived in France as an Au Pair girl; did a 2 year tour in French-speaking West Africa with the Peace Corps; and, worked as a pharmaceutical representative in France for 3 years before returning to Washington DC where I now live and work as an occupational health nurse. Dawn Keeler OCDS
