It remains true however that we can find discreet elements of Teresa’s life in the description of such or such mansion. All the commentators fully agree, the book of Mansions is an autobiographical work, in which she pursues, refines, and specifies her progress in prayer and the union to the Christ. We can compare for example First Mansions 2, 11-12 with Life 6, 4-6: The same fighting between the world and God, the uncertainties and the temptations in the middle of good desires. The same petition made to the saints (Saint Joseph) to be helped in these struggles. We can also put in parallel Life 28-29 and the Sixth Mansions 8 and 9: the Humanity of Christ that reveals himself to Teresa, of which she makes its narrative (Book of Life) or its presentation in a way more organized (The Mansions).
What about of the Fourth Mansions? They are the mansions of transition between the times when the soul makes its efforts and that where it lets God act. Thus we are here oriented to the period of the ‘conversion’ of Teresa, this threshold from which she begins a new life, “the life which God lived in me” (Life 23, 1). During years Teresa made efforts to fight, and maintain the thread of the prayer. Then, while the reading of Saint Augustine, and when her tears spring out in front of Christ most grievously wounded, the tension becomes an impulse of love, Jesus is the center of her life. We can read her narration in the book of her Life, chapters 9 and 10. If we read at the same time the Fourth Mansions, we shall see many broad lines becoming clearer mutually.
In the first chapter of the Fourth Mansions, Teresa distinguishes the sweetness brought by the meditation, the virtuous acts, and the “spiritual consolations” which mark God’s action. In Life 8,17 she had spoken to us of benefit of the good readings or the good sermons, however she also admit the tension that leaves her heartbroken: “At one time I had great comfort in sermons, at another they distressed me”. In the Fourth Mansions 1,5 she clarifies: The sensible devotion I mentioned does not dilate the heart, but generally appears to narrow it slightly; although joyful at seeing herself work for God, yet such a person sheds tears of sorrow which seem partly produced by the passions”. Until the Lord intervenes by himself … “I do not think I had yet perfectly disposed myself to seek His service when His Majesty turned towards me with His consolations.” (Life 9,9) and the water comes “from the source itself, which signifies God: as usual, when His Majesty wills to bestow on us any supernatural favours, we experience the greatest peace, calm, and sweetness in the inmost depths of our being” (4M 2,4). The dilation about which Teresa speaks in the Mansions is especially described in the books of her Life in term of strength: ” implored Him [the Christ most grievously wounded], to strengthen me once for all” and of determination: “I seem to have made greater progress “. The voice which Teresa hears while reading The Confessions of Saint Augustine, corresponds to the whistling of the Shepherd which has such a “power over His flock, that they abandon the worldly cares which misled them and re-enter the castle.”
In both works, we find descriptions and advice for the fighting thoughts, the distractions. We also find the crucial place of humility made explicit in the Mansions, and lived in the book of her Life. Teresa’s sensibility is pierced by the love of Christ according to the narrative of her life, in the Mansions she will formulate how our senses participate in the experience of God (for example Fourth Mansions 2, 6: perfumes on the brazier and Life 9,6 on the pictures of Christ). Everything culminate in the effects of such graces: the confidence and the abandonment to Whom “He sees better than we do what is best for us” (Fourth Mansions 2,9; ” But calling to mind the love that He bore me, I took courage again. Of His mercy I never doubted once, but I did very often of myself” (Life 9,8). More, these “first favours” according Teresa’s words, move her to put herself at the service of love, and love crucified, the Christ most grievously wounded. “To be the servants of love; that seems to me to be nothing else but to resolve to follow Him in the way of prayer, who has loved us so much” (Life 11,1). She still insists in the Mansions: we do not have to ask or seek the favors: “the real preparation for them is to desire to suffer and imitate our Lord”. “I know for a certain truth, being acquainted with some who walk by the way of love and therefore only seek to serve Jesus Christ crucified…” (Fourth Mansions 2, 9).
In these days of the Passion and Easter, we can let resonate the teaching of St. Teresa and “open” our heart to receive the living water from the open side of the Savior, “resting close to Christ,” with tears if it should: so the way of authentic mysticism is open to us.