Today is the feast day for Saint Teresa of Avila, the sixteenth century woman who was so full of the Spirit of Jesus that she was an instrument that helped breathe Life into the Church of her day.
Before I turned to the Office of Readings I had been mulling a question that had come to me: Why, as a recent "convert," do my blog entries not have more explicit reflections on the Catholic Church? This had been simmering in my mind as I turned to the selection from St. Teresa and found these words that perfectly matched my own thoughts, the essence of which is that the focus of our hearts is to be Jesus himself:
Blessed is the one who truly loves him and always keeps him near. Let us consider the glorious Saint Paul: it seems that no other name fell from his lips than that of Jesus, because the name of Jesus was fixed and embedded in his heart. Once I had come to understand this truth, I carefully considered the lives of some of the saints, the great contemplatives, and found that they took no other path: Francis, Anthony of Padua, Bernard, Catherine of Siena.
While I have found greater depths in my relationship with Jesus through the Catholic Church, I want the passion of my heart to be Jesus, and it seems I have good company along with Teresa and the venerable host she cites.
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