St. Teresa of Avila on Reaching the Seventh Dwelling Place

Spiritual Life, Summer 2006 by Zundel, Alan F

Fifth and Sixth Dwelling Places

By continuing on the path of virtue, detachment, and the prayer of recollection, the soul moves from the fourth to the fifth dwelling place. In the fifth dwelling place the soul experiences the prayer of union, which is different than the union with God of the seventh, final dwelling place. In the prayer of union, all of the faculties, including the intellect, are drawn in as though "asleep" to oneself and the things of the world.10 The experience is brief-"never...as much as a half hour"-and comes in various degrees of intensity, but the soul can no longer doubt that God is experienced at these moments, as it did in the prayer of the fourth dwelling place.11 Teresa compares the effects of this prayer to the transformation of a silkworm into a butterfly. The soul now ardently desires to praise God and "die a thousand deaths for Him." It has stronger desires for penance, solitude, and "that all might know God," and it is more detached from the things of the world.12 Although it has a deep sense of inner peace, it is also restless because earthly things cannot satisfy it the way this experience of God does. But even though it conforms itself to God's will, it is not yet entirely surrendered to it.

In the sixth dwelling place, the soul experiences trials, from minor trials, such as enduring gossip, to more serious ones, such as suffering illnesses or anxiety over the state of one's spiritual life. The soul may also feel "wounded in the most delightful way" or experience locutions, raptures, visions, or a deep interior pain that increases both its sorrow for its sins and its desire for God.13 All of these are preparations for entry into the final, seventh dwelling place, where the soul is finally united with God.

Teresa's Emphasis on Exotic Spiritual Experiences

The chapter on the sixth dwelling place is the longest one in The Interior Castle, longer than the chapters on the first four dwelling places put together and nearly three times as long as either the chapter on the fifth dwelling place or the chapter on the seventh. The bulk of the chapter on the sixth dwelling place is devoted to exotic spiritual phenomena such as raptures, locutions, and visions, so one might easily get the impression that such experiences are an important and necessary prelude to entering the seventh dwelling place. But this is not really so, for as Teresa says, "There are many holy persons who have never received one of these favors; and others who receive them but are not holy."14 She also counsels that such experiences, including the earlier experiences of "spiritual delights," are not to be sought after.15

If such experiences are not an essential part of the journey to union with God, why does Teresa spend so much time on them? Four reasons are hinted at in the text:

1. She was not writing the book on her own initiative but on the order of a superior who desired her to discuss such spiritual favors in order to answer the questions of other religious about them.18