Welcome to another issue of the Fit Shepherds’ newsletter. Fr. Mark talks about St. Teresa of Avila’s roadblocks that caused her to stumble in progressing in her spiritual life. As usual, he does a wonderful job of listing several of the blocks and relating them to our lives. Click on the audio above to listen to Fr. Mark talk about these stumbling blocks. The audio was recorded on Saturday, during his talk to Fit Shepherds after the morning workout.
+++++++++++++++++++++
St. Teresa of Avila makes a very striking statement about how carelessness about sin seriously blocked her progress: “As for venial sins, I paid little attention; and that is what destroyed me.”[1] She points out that this was partly the case because she was given advice that “was liberal and permissive.” “What was venial sin they said was no sin at all, and what was serious mortal sin they said was venial. This did me so much harm. . . . I went on in this blindness for I believe more than seventeen years until a Dominican Father, a very learned man, enlightened me about many things.”
At the same time, Teresa acknowledges that she probably should have known better what was right and wrong and that there may have been something in her that too easily accepted this very bad advice. Scripture makes clear that there is something in all of us that has an inclination to look for advice that will let us follow our selfish desires: “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths” (2 Tim. 4:3-4).
Teresa makes, though, a very important distinction between deliberate and freely chosen venial sin (advertent) and venial sin that is not deliberately and freely chosen (inadvertent). She gives a very clear description of what she means: “Be careful and attentive-this is very important-until you see that you are strongly determined not to offend the Lord, that you would lose a thousand lives rather than commit venial sins-that is, advertently; for otherwise, who can go without committing many?”
When Scripture comments that “the just man falls seven times a day” (Prov. 24:16), Teresa understands this as referring to a basically righteous person inadvertently committing small-venial-sins. She thinks that these faults may be with us throughout our life to some degree even though we are progressing on the spiritual journey.
Teresa comments that such inadvertent venial sins, although unfortunately common, don’t impede the spiritual journey nearly as much as freely choosing to commit “small” sins. Her definition of “advertent” venial sin is clear: “It seems to me a sin is very deliberate when, for example, one says: ‘Lord, You see it, and I know You do not want it, and I understand this; but I want to follow my whim and appetite more than Your will.’ It doesn’t seem to me possible that something like this can be called little, however light the fault; but it’s serious, very serious.”
Making a decision never to freely choose to commit even a small sin is an important turning point in the spiritual journey. As Teresa points out, freely choosing to commit a “small” sin isn’t really a little thing if we are trying to live a life pleasing to God.
— From a blog post by Ralph Martin, the author of “The Fulfillment of All Desire”
+++++++++++++++++++++
The deeper our friendship with the Lord, the deeper our obedience to Him, the deeper our sensitivity to the work of His Spirit in our souls, the more fruitful we’re going to be in the mission that He’s given us. And sometimes we reach a certain level in our relationship with the Lord and we say, I’m really doing a lot better than I used to do which is thanks be to God, really true, or I’m certainly doing a lot better than those people over there. We always find people to compare ourselves to make ourselves feel good. But the Lord is saying, don’t look at the past, don’t look at other people, look at Me. Teresa of Avila says, if we just keep our eyes on Jesus, we’ll find ourselves at our destination . . . if we just keep our eyes on Jesus, we’ll find ourselves at our destination.
— From a speech by Ralph Martin
Fr. Mark on St. Teresa of Avila's Stumbling Blocks to Spiritual Progress