Interpreting St Teresa of Avila (XVI)

Patrick Burke, O.Carm.

‘Our Daily Bread’

One of the great truths, which St. Teresa stressed for her Sisters and readers, was that Jesus made us His sisters and brothers. During His passion and death we readily see His humanity. When He teaches us the “Our Father”, He clearly is at one with us creatures, especially when He asks us to unite our lives and service to His gift to the Father, assured that He will not leave us empty-handed. And so Jesus prays the Father on our behalf: “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. St. Teresa acknowledges our human reaction, saying to Jesus: “If you hadn’t made the petition, the task would seem to me impossible” (Way of Perfection 32, 2). If earth has become heaven, yes — it will be possible. But the reality — the earth hasn’t and with our world “as wretched and barren as mine” there is little hope. But it is Jesus, our Saviour, who offered this prayer to His Father on our behalf, yours and mine. As we pray: “Your will be done”, we should realise that “Jesus acts here as our ambassador and that He has desired to intervene between us and His Father, but at no small cost of His own” (WP 32, 3). Teresa was comforted by the knowledge that Jesus didn’t have to depend on her will. The obedience of the Son to the Father’s will covered “the trials, sorrows, injuries and persecutions He suffered” leading to His death on the Cross — the Father’s will for the Son He loved most. Teresa appeals to our human hearts no matter who we are directing us to make a complete gift of ourselves to the Father, as is done in Baptism. She asks us to renew this surrender of our wills to His with a detachment for our world around.

St. Teresa had her own experiences, so she prays for us too. “Your will, Lord, be done in me in every way and manner that You, My Lord, want. If you want it to be done with trials, strengthen me and let them come; if with persecutions, illnesses, dishonour and a lack of life’s necessities, here I am” (WP 32, 10). We must not forget that the emphasis is on God’s will — not on personal suffering. There is plenty of the latter in all of us. Those closest to the Son, Teresa says, are strengthened by the knowledge that Jesus gave the Father our wills when He gave His own in the name of us all. The greatness and importance of this gift is that “He becomes one with our lowliness, transforms us into Himself and effects a union of the Creator with the creature (WP 32, 11). Teresa takes her strength from her knowledge that Jesus knows our weakness, that, in fact, we often do not understand what the Lord’s will is in our regard. Even accepting readily God’s will, doing the Father’s will was difficult for most people. Though we are aware that many in our population are dying of hunger, we ignore the need to help them by moderation and sacrifice at our own meals. Teresa points out to all — from religious to ordinary lay people — that they fulfil their natural obligations of charity according to God’s will. She reminds us that sometimes we promise one thing but do the opposite. Yet our prayer is “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. She dogmatically pronounces that “there would have been only a very few who would have carried out these words He spoke for us to the Father” — Your will be done. Given this tragedy, she says that Jesus sought out a wonderful means by which to show the extreme of His love for us. He made the following petition: “Give us this day, Lord, our daily bread”. He must remain with us “not just one day but every day”. The result is the gift of the Eucharist, His presence in the Blessed Sacrament. Her reaction to the Father’s consent is very strong but understandable in the context of the Church’s experience in her time, when rejection and abuses, “insults committed today against this Most Blessed Sacrament..., irreverence from these heretics were reported”. But Teresa prays “O Eternal Father, what treasure do we have that could buy Your Son? The thirty pieces of silver. But to buy Him, no price is sufficient. Since by sharing in our nature He has become one with us here below, He reminds the Father that because He belongs to Him, the Father in turn can give Him to us. And so He says ‘our bread’. He doesn’t make any difference between Himself and us.” (WP 33, 5). Pope John Paul II in his encyclical letter on “The Eucharist and the Church” stresses the tradition in Vatican II and the Doctors of the Church, stating: “Our union with Christ, which is a gift and grace for each of us, makes it possible for us, in him, to share in the unity of his body which is the Church. The Eucharist reinforces the incorporation into Christ which took place in Baptism through the gift of the Spirit” (II, 23).

For Teresa, the gift of the Eucharist, “Our Daily Bread”, was to enable and empower us to do the will of the Father, in our own regard. “He, in fact doesn’t remain with us for any other reason than to help, encourage, and sustain us in doing this will that we have prayed might be done in us” (WP 34, 1). She saw that through the Eucharist, He could be found “at will” but to temper the great satisfaction that we receive “its sufficient that He remain disguised in the accidents of bread and wine”. Teresa’s advice to anyone disappointed was: “Beg Him not to fail you, and to give you the disportions to receive Him worthwhile”.

She explained her wishes for her Sisters. “Let us ask the Eternal Father that we might merit to receive our heavenly bread in such a way that the Lord may reveal Himself to the ways of our soul and make Himself thereby known, since our bodily eyes cannot delight in beholding Him, because He is so hidden (WP 34, 5). The knowledge we receive is the sustenance that satisfies and delights and maintains our spiritual life. One thing she stresses is the receiving Communion is not like picturing with the imagination or when we reflect upon the Lord on the Cross. In Communion, the event is happening now, and it is entirely true” (WP 34, 8). She states clearly that Jesus is here with us as long as the accidents of bread remain. If during Christ’s earthly life, “the mere touch of His robes cured the sick”, similar miracles will occur when we receive Him in Holy Communion.

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