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On the feast of Saint Teresa of Avila, I am reminded of Pope Benedict XVI’s fascinating commentary on metabase– the journey of charity as a “departure from oneself” – in the second volume of his famous work Jesus of Nazareth series:
“Love to the end” is what brings about the seemingly impossible metabase: breaking out of the confines of one’s closed individuality, which is what agape is, entering into the divine. The “hour” of Jesus is the hour of the great step beyond… it is agape “to the end” – and here John anticipates the last words of the dying Jesus: telestai – “it is accomplished” (19:30). ). This end (telos), this totality of self-giving, of the remaking of the entire being, this is what it means to give oneself until death.
The theme of departure, exit, or exit from oneself toward God as the ultimate Other appears elsewhere, often in reference to the spousal relationship between Christ and his Church. For example, in the Song of Solomon, the husband invites his wife to “come” with him “to Lebanon”, while the wife invites him to “enter (her) garden”, both indicating the external movement from self to other (4:8, 16). This imagery also appears in the Revelation of John, when Christ “the Lamb” prepares for his marriage to his bride, the Church (“The Lamb came, and the bride made herself ready” (19 : 7), “The Spirit and the bride said ‘Come!'” (22:17)).
The theme of self-exit can be likened to martyrdom insofar as it involves the death of the selfish self. One cannot experience true oneness with Christ or with others until one leaves one’s ego behind. This death to self is not the end of the story, nor of the trajectory of the movement, but rather the beginning. Take, for example, the image of Teresa of Avila’s ecstasy, which she describes in her autobiography as an experience like the marital union between two spouses:
I saw in his hands a large golden dart and at the end of the iron tip there seemed to be a small fire. It seemed to me that this angel plunged the dart into my heart several times and penetrated deep within me. When he removed it, I thought he was taking the deepest part of me with him; and he left me all aflame with a great love of God. The pain was so great that it made me groan, and the sweetness that this greater pain caused me was so superabundant that no desire could take it away; nor is the soul satisfied with less than God. The pain is not bodily but spiritual, even if the body does not fail to share part of it, and even a large part. The loving exchange that takes place between the soul and God is so sweet that I beg Him in His goodness to give a taste of that love to anyone who thinks I am lying.
This experience inspired Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s controversial statue. Teresa’s facial expression in the statue reflects the sensations of physical agony, death, erotic pleasure, and spiritual joy, all of which she alludes to in her description of the experience. This image vividly shows how Teresa’s experience maintains the tension between bodily passion/desire and renunciation, and self-mortification and communion with Christ as the divine Bridegroom.
THE 1984 Spanish miniseries about her life takes seriously the erotic language that Teresa uses to bring to life the story of her first ecstasy. The moaning and heavy breathing may raise eyebrows for some, but if we take the Saint at her word, it is very realistic.
The very etymology of the word “ecstasy” gives insight into the “hidden” implications of this event: it is derived from the Greek ἔκστασις: to leave oneself or one’s position. Bernini’s statue gives shape to these hidden implications. Her facial expression, which simultaneously evokes a feeling of great pain or death and sensual pleasure, recalls the interdependence of love and death, poetically summed up in chapter 8 of the Song of Solomon: “Place me as a seal on your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy as unyielding as the grave” (8:6).
Philosopher Jean-Luc Marion applies the ideas of love as leaving the self and love embracing death to his analysis of marital relations between a man and a woman. He notes that the climactic moment between the lovers gives way to an “eschatological anticipation”: the lover’s self-giving to the other in the marital act requires that he cling to nothing for himself : “To love requires that the first time already coincides with the last time.” The conjugal act implies a totalizing gift, which extends until
the final instance… Dawn and evening become one twilight – the time of loving does not last and is played out in an instant, a fragment, a single beat – a single heartbeat, the smallest gap… separates us from eternity. We love each other in articulo vitae, or in other words in articulo mortis; death does not frighten the lover any more than the finish line terrorizes the runner… The time of lovers… settles in until the end – they set off together from the moment of departure and cannot separate.
The French humorously speak of the climactic moment as the little dead: the little death. In this way, even the marital relations of a married couple are drawn into the trajectory of love unto death in which Christ invites his disciples to participate. This is echoed in the Byzantine tradition, in which images of death and martyrdom appear throughout history. liturgical rites for marriage. Toward the end of the wedding ceremony, the celebrant leads the bride and groom around the sacramental table three times in what is known as the “Dance of Isaiah.” The hymn sung accompanying this dance refers to the crowns that were placed on the heads of the bride and groom earlier in the ceremony. These crowns represent the “martyrs’ rewards” for “fighting the good fight” and thus “bringing glory to (God).”
This hymn is a reminder of what this man and woman are called to do in their marriage: ultimately die to self and unite with Christ through their spouse. In this sense, they reproduce the heroic act of the martyrs, who literally die for union with Christ and for his glorification. Thus, perhaps less dramatically, the married man and woman bear witness to the trajectory of their marriage ordered toward an Object external to itself. On this feast of Saint Teresa, the entire Church – both those called to marriage and to consecrated life – should reflect on her powerful use of spousal imagery to illuminate the mysterious intimacy to which Christ calls each of us with himself- even.
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