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A Year with St. Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle

Share our inviation video with a friend and order your copy of The Interior Castle!

Introduction

1.) Ask yourself this question: “Do I have an interior life?”

2.) Buy your copy of the Interior Castle and begin reading! Read Mansion 1 by March 15th

Mansion One

1.) Have you finished reading Mansion One?

2.) Listen to the podcast and consider what your discipline of prayer is like.

3.) Join us for our in-person discussion! Join our Intellectual Society email list for more details.

Mansion Two

Three Key words:

Interiority, struggle and communion

Questions for Reflection

1.) What is it like when I hear God’s voice?

2.) What has He been saying lately?

3.) Do you have a written plan of love or rule of life that outline how you will intentionally give your time weekly and daily to prayer and the sacraments?

4.) Do you have time set aside each day for mental prayer?

5.) Do you have someone in your life you can be accountable to in prayer?

6.) By moving to the Second Dwelling Places, we see we must leave our old life behind? How is this a struggle?

7.) When you fall, do you trust in the mercy of God? Even out of your fall, God will bring good

Mansion Three

Here St. Teresa describes the last doorway before we enter into the mansions of the Lord's work as opposed to our own.

Questions for reflection

1.) Have I built in practices based on order in my life and prayer routine?

2.) Where can I make room for Holy spirit as opposed to my own plan?

Mansion Four

Mansion Four is packed with three chapters and might be the most important mansion of all. Saint Teresa says this is the mansion where we move from the active form of prayer to the beginnings of passive recollection and we are getting closer to the Seventh Dwelling! (The change is so subtle we might miss it.)

Questions for Reflection

1.) What is a good way to dispose oneself for this new type of prayer?

2.) Teresa uses the analogy of the water trough. Can you think of another one for explaining the difference in prayer?

3.) What is going well in your prayer life right now? What isn't?

4.) Is the Lord doing something new in your relationship with Him?

5. ) Right now, is the Lord telling you to run or slow down?

6.) Do you struggle with distractions in prayer? If so, how can you apply St. Teresa's wisdom on how to deal with these distractions?

7.) Have any of the devil's tactics the saint mentions come against you in your prayer life?

8.) Where is there a lack of self-knowledge in your life and how might that be preventing you from going deeper in the mystical ladder?

Mansion Five

Join us for a discussion of mansion five where Saint Theresa talks about the changes in prayer that occur in the soul moving out of mansion four. In this video we will highlight the Saints famous image of the the silk worm, and the butterfly that tell us so much about moving into union with our bridegroom, Jesus Christ.

Mansion Six

In Mansion Six, Saint Teresa discusses her famous transverberation where the flame of love pierces her heart.

We will also explore some of the ideas coming from Sr. Mary Prudence Allen, RSM, The Concept of Woman, (3 volumes) who connects Teresa’s thoughts with the medieval saint, Thomas Aquinas and the modern prophet, Pope Saint John Paul II and his groundbreaking Theology of the Body. It is always exciting to see how the Holy Spirit has been guiding the Church for thousands of years.

Mansion Seven

In Mansion 7 we look at how Saint Teresa describes the differences between the betrothal and the spiritual marriage in the soul. The saint’s fascinating interpretation of Martha and Mary brings the seven mansions to a culmination. And finally, we look at how the teachings of St. John of the Cross complement those of Teresa and give some masculine insight into how both men and women are called to be the bride with Christ in this spiritual nuptial vision.

Questions for reflection

1.) Has God ever let you go through a period of sustained emptiness, which he later filled with His light?

2. ) In the podcast, we discuss dividing Theresa's life into two parts if you were to write your own spiritual autobiography how would you describe the different chapters in your own spiritual journey?

3.) Saint Theresa was so influenced by St. Paul that we can call her life Pauline in a sense, are there things about the life of Saint Paul that speak to you?

4.) Looking at the different patterns of imitation in the spiritual life, which saints speak to you? Do you see a pattern in the life of a saint that you see in your own life?

5.) What are some ways you can see a joining of Martha and Mary in your own life?

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