“Oh! ’tis not Spanish, but ’tis Heaven she speaks!”
and we had come to Avila expressly to offer her the tribute of our admiration. Here she reigns, to quote Miss Martineau’s words, “as true a queen on this mountain throne as any empress who ever wore a crown!”
At this very moment we were on our way to visit the places associated with her memory. A few turns more through the narrow, tortuous streets, and we came to the ponderous gateway of San Vicente on the north side of the city, so named from the venerable church just without the walls, beloved of archæologists. But for the moment it had no attraction for us; for below, in the broad, sunny valley, we could see the monastery of the Incarnation, a place of great interest to the Catholic heart. There it was
that St. Teresa, young and beautiful, took the veil and spent more than thirty years of her life. The first glimpse of it one can never forget; and, apart from the associations, the ancient towers of San Vicente on the edge of the hill, the fair valley below with its winding stream and the convent embosomed among trees, and the mountains that girt the horizon, made up a picture none the less lovely for being framed in that antique gateway. We went winding down to the convent, perhaps half a mile distant, by the Calle de la Encarnacion. No sweeter, quieter spot could be desired in which to end one’s days. It is charmingly situated on the farther side of the Adaja, and commands a fine view of Avila, which, indeed, is picturesque in every direction. We could count thirty towers in the city walls as we turned at the convent gate to look back. St. Teresa stopped in this same archway, Nov. 2, 1533, to bid farewell to her brother Antonio, who, on leaving her, went to the Dominican convent, where he took the monastic habit. She was then only eighteen and a half years old. The inward agony she experienced on entering the convent she relates with great sincerity, but there was no faltering in her determination to embrace the higher life. The house had been founded only about twenty years before, and the first Mass was said in it the very day she was baptized. That was more than three centuries ago. Its stout walls may be somewhat grayer, and the alleys of its large garden more umbrageous, but its general aspect must be very much the same; for in that dry climate nature does not take so kindly to man’s handiwork as in the misty north, where the old convents are all draped with moss
and the ivy green. It is less peopled also. In 1550 there were ninety nuns, but now there are not more than half that number.
There is a series of little parlors, low and dim, with unpainted beams, and queer old chairs, and two black grates with nearly a yard between, through which you can converse, as through a tunnel, with the nuns. They have not been changed since St. Teresa’s time. In one of these our Lord reproved her for her conversations, which still savored too much of the world. Here, later in life, St. Francis Borgia came to see her on his way from the convent of Yuste, where he had been to visit his kinsman, Charles V. Here she saw St. Peter of Alcantara in ecstasy. In one of these parlors, now regarded as a sacred spot, she held her interviews with St. John of the Cross when he was director of the house. It is related that one day, while he was discoursing here on the mystery of the Holy Trinity, she was so impressed by his words that she fell on her knees to listen. In a short time he entered the ecstatic state, leaving St. Teresa lost in divine contemplation; and when one of the nuns came with a message, she found them both suspended in the air! For a moment they ceased to belong to earth, and its laws did not control them. A picture of this scene hangs on the wall. In a larger and more cheerful parlor some nuns of very pleasing manners of the true Spanish type showed us several objects that belonged to St. Teresa, and some of her embroidery of curious Spanish work, very nicely done, as we were glad to see; likewise, a Christ covered with bleeding wounds as he appeared to St. John of the Cross, and many other touching memorials of the past.
We next visited the church, which is large, with buttressed walls, low, square towers, and a gabled belfry. The interior is spacious and lofty, but severe in style. There is a nave, and two short transepts with a dome rising between them. It is paved with flag-stones, and plain wooden benches stand against the stone walls. The high altar, at which St. John of the Cross used to say Mass, has its gilt retable, with colonnettes and niches filled with the saints of the order, among whom we remember the prophets who dwelt on Mt. Carmel, and St. Albert, patriarch of Jerusalem. The nuns’ choir is at the opposite end of the church. We should say choirs; for they have two, one above the other, with double black grates, which are generally curtained. It was at the grate of the lower choir, dim and mystic as his Obscure Night of the Soul, that St. John of the Cross used to preach to the nuns. What sermons there must have been from him who wrote, as never man wrote, on the upward way from night to light!
The grating of this lower choir has two divisions, between which is a small square shutter, like the door of a tabernacle, on which is represented a chalice and Host. It was here St. Teresa received the Holy Communion for more than thirty years. Here one morning, after receiving it from the hand of St. John of the Cross, she was mysteriously affianced to the heavenly Bridegroom, who called her, in the language of the Canticles, by the sweet name of Spouse, and placed on her finger the nuptial ring. She was then fifty-seven years of age. A painting over the communion table represents this supernatural event.
This choir is also associated with the memory of Eleonora de Cepeda,
a niece of St. Teresa’s, who became a nun at the convent of the Incarnation. She was remarkable for her detachment from earth, and died young, an angel of purity and devotion. St. Teresa saw her body borne to the choir by angels. No Mass of requiem was sung over her. It was during the Octave of Corpus Christi. The church was adorned as for a festival. The Mass of the Blessed Sacrament was chanted to the sound of the organ, and the Alleluia repeatedly sung, as if to celebrate the entrance of her soul into glory. The dead nun, in the holy habit of Mt. Carmel, lay on her bier covered with lilies and roses, with a celestial smile on her pale face that seemed to reflect the beatitude of her soul. The procession of the Host was made around her, and all the nuns took a last look at their beautiful sister before she was lowered into the gloomy vault below.[42]