In the stillness of the convent’s early morning light, St. Teresa of Ávila sat in her room, her hands folded, her heart torn between heaven and earth. The raptures had become more frequent—unbidden moments when the Divine would seize her soul, lifting her beyond the world she knew, only to leave her dazed and trembling when she returned. It was a holy madness, a sacred love affair with God that at once enthralled and troubled her.
Her brother Lorenzo had written to her, asking how she was faring, and she sighed as she prepared to write back. What could she say that would truly capture the intensity of her experience? How could she describe the overwhelming intoxication of divine love, when it left her almost useless in the practical world she still needed to manage?
“For more than eight days,” she began, her quill scratching across the paper, “I’ve been in such a state that I can hardly attend to business. These raptures… they happen often now, even in public.” She paused, a flush of embarrassment rising at the memory of her last incident. It had happened during a gathering of nuns, and though she had tried to maintain composure, her body had betrayed her, overcome by the love that surged through her, as if the very Spirit had seized her soul and drawn her into divine ecstasy.
“I feel as though I am drunk,” she wrote, with an exasperated sigh. “It’s no use resisting them, and I am so ashamed… Yet what can I do? My heart longs for union with God, but there is a convent to run, letters to answer, and daily affairs that cannot be ignored.”
Her mind wandered to the countless times she had prayed for balance—this holy intoxication, this divine love, was both her deepest joy and her greatest struggle. She yearned for God so intensely that her soul felt as though it might burst from her chest, yet at the same time, the mundane tasks of convent life awaited her. The other nuns, her beloved sisters, depended on her to lead with common sense, even as her heart danced on the edge of divine madness.
That was the paradox of her existence—this holy madness that pulled her to the heights of spiritual ecstasy, and yet the grounding responsibility of being an abbess, a leader, tending to earthly matters with grace and care. The love that consumed her was both her power and her cross to bear. “It’s a real nuisance,” she wrote. “It doesn’t seem to help me at all in prayer.”
She smiled softly at the thought of balance, of bringing the two worlds together. Perhaps that was the lesson in this—her holy intoxication wasn’t meant to remove her from the world, but to strengthen her within it. Her work, the daily tasks, the business of running the convent, all of it was sacred. If only she could see it that way. As she reflected on this, she felt a shift, a softening.
Teresa rose from her chair and moved toward the chapel, her heart heavy with longing but her spirit grounded in the knowledge that she was both divine and human. In the candlelit stillness, she whispered a prayer, a movement of her soul toward God, asking for the grace to hold both realities—to tend to the sacred in the ordinary, to let the ecstasy of union with God fuel her service to her sisters.
“Help me, my Beloved,” she murmured, “to honor the divine within the mundane, to see that even the smallest task is a path to You.”
As she prayed, she felt the familiar pull of rapture beginning to rise within her, but this time, instead of resisting, she welcomed it, knowing that it was through this holy madness that she would find her true strength. She would learn to embrace both—the divine intoxication and the grounded responsibility—as parts of her sacred journey.
For Teresa, this balance was the heart of her spiritual path—a union of heaven and earth, the soul’s longing for the infinite, lived through the simple acts of daily life.
We recently celebrated St Teresa of Ávila´s Feast day on October 15th and this week I have loved rereading so many of her writings that have accompanied me since my teenage years. For those of you who would like to deepen your connection with St Teresa of Ávila, there is a free online Novena available. CLICK HERE
I found this lovely image of St Teresa of Ávila. She loved to dance when she prayed and was a great musician of the tambourine and castanets. I do not know the name of the artist, but I greatly appreciate this expression.
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I am wishing all of you a blessed Shabbat day.
Ahava,
Ana Otero
