Interior Castle (Thrift Editions)

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An 8-week online course journeying through the seven mansions of St. Teresa of Ávila’s Interior Castlewith James Finley and Mirabai Starr as guides. Deepen your awareness of the “inner witness” and experience the Interior Castle an embodied pathway of union with God.

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Humility is essential to all growth in the spiritual life. Recognize who you are and recognize who God is. Course material will be presented in a format modeled after the structure of James Finley’s retreats. The rhythm of the teaching will follow the same flow: an invitation to contemplative practice, a teaching, personal reflection questions, sharing in group discussions, and an invitation to contemplative practice. The word forever comes to the fore again in the quality of the diamond’s hardness, durability and endurance and holds a special place and fascination for us, who are creatures who had a beginning but are destined to live forever. As we journey inward through the rooms of the diamond castle we will need the diamond’s endurance to persevere until we reach the center chamber where His Majesty dwells and find that rest of which St. Augustine speaks in his Confessions: “You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You.” More than a book, The Interior Castle is a powerful image of the mystery of the human person. It is, in a very real sense, Teresa’s soul. Using the image of a castle, Teresa describes the soul’s progressive inner journey through seven dwelling places, until finally reaching the center where, now transformed, it is united with God. souls without prayer are like people whose bodies or limbs are paralysed: they possess feet and hands but they cannot control them.”

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One day, speaking with Mother Mary of Jesus on spiritual matters, she said that our Lord had communicated so much to her since she had reached what she described in the seventh Mansion,--the spiritual Marriage,--that she did not consider it possible to advance further in this life, in the way of prayer, nor even to wish to do so. 11 to say nothing through fear that taking the matter up would be yielding to temptation would itself be to yield to temptation.”

the Mansions of the Interior Castle? - We Dare To Say What are the Mansions of the Interior Castle? - We Dare To Say

This type of prayer is “ the prayer of union.” Here the soul loves God with such intensity that it is even forgetful of itself. As the soul grows in love, it also grows in detachment from selfishness.

the manner nor showed the way whereby they came to the enjoyment of the sweetness of the Spouse. Now, however, this way is clear and patent to all, having been pointed out in the Mansions, in language so straight and so methodical, and no longer such as could not be understood, or required further explanation. In my opinion this holy writer derived not only the substance of her teaching from infused knowledge, but even the words with which she explains it.' 23 Writing to Mother Mary of St. Joseph, Prioress of Seville, November 8, 1581, St. Teresa gives her a message for Father Rodrigo Alvarez, S. J.: 'Our Father (Jerome Gracian, then provincial) tells me that he has handed you a book written by me, true perfection consists in the love of God and our neighbor, and the better we keep both these commandments, the more perfect we shall be.”