We cannot say of S. Clara that she originated a great work of utility. She supplemented the undertaking of S. Francis, and carried his extravagances to a further extreme. But she was sincere, she held to her purpose; and although her foundation was one void of common-sense and right principles, yet, because well intended, it worked itself into one of utility, and continues to the present day in the Latin Communion doing good service.
S. THERESA.
XVII
S. THERESA
The most beautiful and pathetic female figure that stands out in the age of the great convulsion which rent Europe into two religious camps, is that of Theresa of Avila: beautiful, because of her exquisitely pure and sincere character and strength of purpose; pathetic, because all her saintliness, all her energies, were directed in a false channel, and to build up what crumbled to pieces almost as soon as the breath left her body.
S. Theresa was born at Avila, in Spain, in the province of the same name and the kingdom of Castile, 1515. Her parents belonged to the class of gentry, and were well connected, but not wealthy.
“To know Avila,” says Miss G. C. Graham, in her book Santa Teresa, “to wander through its streets, to watch the sun rise and set over the sombre moorlands beyond the city walls—is greatly to know Teresa. In one of its fortress-houses, where on the shield over the gateway the bucklers of the Davilas were quartered with the rampant lion of the Cepedas, she was born and passed her childhood. In the cathedral which looms over the city walls, half church, half fortress, she worshipped and gazed with ardent eyes, and with a thrill of wonder and terror, into the dim mysteries of its roof. In the quiet cloisters of the Encarnacion she passed the greater part of her life of peace and contemplation. These time-stained stones, these silent cloisters—all that remains in outward bodily form of that strangely complex age, which produced her and the gentle San Juan de la Cruz, so different from her in character and tendencies, together with Philip II., the gloomy and conscientious bigot who championed both—shaped and moulded her existence, shut in and controlled her life. Most meet background for her whose whole life was to be one long battle, this city of warriors and knights—their very memory all shadowy.”
Her father was twice married, and Theresa was the eldest daughter by the second wife, who bore him seven sons and two daughters. By his first wife he had two sons and a daughter. She says of this family, “They were all bound to one another by a tender love, and all resembled their parents in virtue except myself.”
The young men for the most part went to the “Indies” to carve out fortunes for themselves, but always looked back wistfully and with love to the old home and the dear sisters and parents there. There was much that was grand and full of promise in ancient Spanish life—great domestic attachment, simplicity, integrity, and self-respect, together with a dauntless spirit and a love of adventure. But a fatal darkness came over it. The liberal and democratic institutions of the country were destroyed by the King’s ambition of obtaining absolute power; and, worst of all, the Inquisition was suffered to scotch and kill all free intellectual life.
Theresa from an early age was full of vital, intellectual and spiritual energies, but none of these was allowed an outlet. With her extraordinary powers, and with her indomitable will, had her energies been directed to expand in practical good works, she might have transformed the position of her countrywomen.