This
acclaimed commentary on Saint Teresa of Avila's classic work, Way
of Perfection,
discusses the various forms of Christian prayer, with an emphasis on
Teresa's meditation on the Our Father. The author, a renowned expert
on Carmelite spirituality, includes many quotations from Saint Teresa
and Saint John of the Cross, which have been conformed to the most
current authorized translations.
Teresa
of Avila reformed the Carmelite order in the sixteenth century.
Seeing Teresa in deep prayer, her first companions asked her to teach
them how to pray. The apostles made the same request of Jesus: "Teach
us to pray." Jesus answered by teaching the Our Father. Teresa
responded to her sisters by writing Way
of Perfection,
which contains an extended commentary upon the Lord's Prayer. As
Jesus did in his Sermon on the Mount, Teresa, in her Way
of Perfection,
first teaches the necessary dispositions for prayer before teaching
the different kinds of prayer.
Named
a Doctor of the Church by Pope Paul VI in 1970, Teresa united not
only prayer and the apostolate, but contemplation and the apostolate,
for contemplation is a particular kind of prayer that tends toward
the most sublime intimacy with our Lord.
Paperback, 205 pp.
Measures 5 1/4" by 8".