Teresa of Avila and the Politics of Sanctity

Theological Studies, June, 1997 by Mary E. Giles

This examination of the forces that shaped Tridentine Catholicism and Teresa's response to the strictures of that context is indispensable to understanding the saint's motivations and accomplishments. Beginning with a carefully documented analysis of the religious climate before the Valdes Index of 1559, Ahlgren focuses on the alumbrados and holy women who claimed spiritual authority on the basis of visions and mental prayer. When tolerance for spiritual innovation submitted to increasing church control over individual spiritual practices after 1559, bringing into severe question the validity of women's experiences, Teresa sought to rehabilitate women's spiritual autonomy, their right to mental prayer, and visions as a legitimate aspect of mystical life. To enact her agenda she developed in her spiritual writings what A. defines and ably exemplifies as strategies of subordination and instrumental authority.

The explanation of the typology and history of visions within Christianity is especially useful in focusing Teresa's efforts to substantiate the legitimacy of "her mystical experience and the esoteric authority it gave her within the sacramental life of the Roman Catholic tradition"(169), as is the analysis of modifications to the second and third versions of The Way of Perfection by which she tempered her advocacy of mental prayer with an eye to inquisitorial criticism while at the same time keeping a tight grip on the authority of individual experience.

Impeccably researched and distinguished by a thorough grasp of the theological and political issues of 16th-century Spain, the volume is a brilliant argument for how and why Teresa of Avila authorized in writing and action her belief that "the discovery of God's presence in the soul is a spiritual imperative for all people" (112).