{"id":8534,"date":"2025-02-14T10:14:46","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T17:14:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/?p=8534"},"modified":"2025-02-14T10:14:46","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T17:14:46","slug":"teresa-of-avila-i-am-for-my-beloved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/14\/teresa-of-avila-i-am-for-my-beloved\/","title":{"rendered":"Teresa of Avila – I am for My Beloved"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Those Words \u201cI am for My Beloved\u201d
\nby Teresa of Avila<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

English version by Megan Don<\/font><\/p>\n

Already I gave myself completely,
\nand have changed in such a way
\nThat my Beloved is for me
\nand I am for my Beloved.<\/p>\n

When the gentle hunter shot me
\nand left me in all my weakness,
\nin the arms of love
\nmy soul fell
\nand being charged with new life
\nI have changed in such a way
\nThat My Beloved is for me
\nand I am for my Beloved.<\/p>\n

He pierced me with an arrow
\nlaced with the herbs of love
\nand my soul became one
\nwith her Creator;
\nI no longer want another love,
\nsince I have given myself to my God,
\nThat My Beloved is for me
\nand I am for my Beloved.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a> \u2014 from The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)<\/a>, Edited by Ivan M. Granger<\/font><\/p>\n


\/ Image by stevekc<\/a> \/<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

Happy Valentine\u2019s Day! I thought this meditation on love and the soul\u2019s yielding to the Beloved was just right.<\/p>\n

I was sent this poem directly by the translator, Megan Don. She is the author of Meditations with Teresa of Avila<\/a> \u2014 a truly beautiful collection of contemplations inspired by the writings of Teresa of Avila.<\/p>\n

According to Megan Don, this poem by Teresa of Avila was written about her well-known mystical experience of feeling her heart being pierced with a rapturous love by an angel. This sacred moment inspired Bernini to craft his spiritually erotic sculpture, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.<\/p>\n

A few of my own thoughts:<\/p>\n

Saints and mystics the world over speak of the heart being touched, pierced, opened. They speak of being surprised by love. The problem is, we hear the world \u201clove\u201d and \u201cheart\u201d and we think of the simple sweetness of Valentine\u2019s Day cards. We aren\u2019t encouraged to develop a real concept of what these great souls are attempting to communicate.<\/p>\n

When the mind settles and the soul waits in vulnerable readiness, the most amazing thing happens: the heart blooms. The heart opens and expands. Effortlessly, the heart reaches out, with a wider span than we imagined possible, embracing all of creation. We become flooded with something beyond feeling or emotion; there is a sense of finally recognizing our full nature within the heart. We immediately know that we have returned home, that we have rediscovered the seat of our being.<\/p>\n

Within this awareness, when we focus inward, we are enraptured, filled with bliss, a sense of wholeness and joy that is beyond words. When focused outward, we have become an embodiment of love. Love pours through us and fills everything we perceive. <\/p>\n

Amidst this love, the barriers to our empathy collapse and we also begin to feel all the world\u2019s struggling hopes and suffering and surging life \u2014 yet it is all somehow part of a larger tapestry of beauty.<\/p>\n

Think about these things. Consider what it means to have one\u2019s heart \u201cpierced\u201d by the Divine. How can we, in full honesty, say, \u201cI gave myself completely,\u201d and \u201cI am for my Beloved\u201d? What is the weakness or vulnerability that the \u201cgentle hunter\u201d leaves us in? What does it mean to be \u201cchanged with new life\u201d? The big question: What is the real experience that allows us to say, \u201cmy soul became one \/ with her Creator\u201d?<\/p>\n

Have a beautiful Valentine\u2019s Day, at home within the heart.<\/p>\n


\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Recommended Books: Teresa of Avila<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nPoetry for the Spirit: Poems of Universal Wisdom and Beauty<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nWomen in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nFor Lovers of God Everywhere: Poems of the Christian Mystics<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nAll Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
More Books >><\/a><\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/center>
\n<\/p>\n\n\n
\n\"Teresa<\/a>\n<\/td>\n\nTeresa of Avila<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Spain (1515 \u2013 1582) Timeline<\/a>
\nChristian<\/a> : Catholic<\/a>
\n<\/a><\/a><\/em>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p>\n

Teresa de Jesus, more popularly known as Teresa of Avila, lived in a time of turmoil and religious reform. She was a nun in Catholic Spain during the immediate aftermath of the Protestant Reformation, when Spain saw itself as the most secure bastion of traditional Catholic faith and practice.<\/p>\n

She was a strong and inspired leader in a time and place when women were relegated to more passive roles. And she was a deep mystic, who was said to sometimes levitate off the ground, with her face illuminated.<\/p>\n

Teresa entered the Carmelite order of nuns against the wishes of her father. She formed and headed the \u201cdiscalced\u201d movement within the Carmelite order, a movement that advocated simplicity, humility, and the spiritual life over the increasingly worldly and sometimes corrupt practices that dominated many other communities of monks and nuns. Through the Discalced Carmelite movement, she founded several monasteries. These activities led her into a world of politics, legal battles, letter campaigns, and long periods of exhausting travel.<\/p>\n

Like Francis of Assisi, Teresa also suffered from a series of debilitating illnesses and injuries, often made even worse by the treatments of the time. Later in life, for example, she fell down a flight of stairs and broke her arm. It was poorly set and limited her movement. Someone had to re-break her arm in order to reset it, but an even worse job was done, leaving her essentially crippled and needing aid for such simple things as dressing herself.<\/p>\n

Obedience was one of the virtues Teresa particularly extolled. Politically, this was significant at a time when the Catholic world was being challenged by the Protestant reformation, and when many mystical movements within the Catholic church narrowly escaped the label of heresy. Yet obedience, for her and for monastics throughout the centuries, has the spiritual value of freeing the individual from self-will and the trap of ego. In other words, when practiced with intelligent caution, obedience can be understood as a technique that opens the heart and the awareness.<\/p>\n

Despite her physical sufferings and the challenges of her foundational work within the Catholic church, she remained supremely dedicated to the mystical life. She shared a close spiritual connection with John of the Cross, her younger contemporary, and was in many ways a mentor to that great poet and mystic.<\/p>\n

Teresa of Avila wrote poetry, many letters, histories of her work in establishing monastic foundations, but it is her book on the path of prayer, The Way of Perfection, and her spiritual autobiography, The Interior Castle, that are most widely read and considered her masterpieces.<\/p>\n

More poetry by Teresa of Avila<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Those Words \u201cI am for My Beloved\u201d by Teresa of Avila English version by Megan Don Already I gave myself completely, and have changed in such a way That my Beloved is for me and I am for my Beloved. When the gentle hunter shot me and left me in all my weakness, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[53,1034,79,893,474,198,197,1677],"class_list":["post-8534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-catholic-poetry","tag-christian-love-poetry","tag-christian-poetry","tag-heart","tag-lover-and-beloved","tag-st-teresa-of-avila","tag-teresa-of-avila","tag-valentines-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8534"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8535,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8534\/revisions\/8535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}