Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
On this memorial of St. Teresa of Jesus, I'd like to go over again and highlight the conditions for growth in prayer that she lays out for us. It's one of the reasons why she's called the Doctor of Prayer. These are taken from Fr. Thomas Dubay's book, Fire Within. Some of you might be familiar with that book.
The first condition for growth in prayer, according to St. Teresa, is simply to do the will of God every day and to strive to live virtuously. Teresa writes, "The whole aim of any person who is beginning prayer should be that he work and prepare himself with determination in every effort to bring his will into conformity with God's will." So, lining up our will with the Lord's will is first and foremost. That's the first step, most important. She then adds this, it is the person who lives in more perfect conformity who will receive more from the Lord and be more advanced on this road of prayer.
Second condition is that growth in prayer does not depend on our circumstances. Fr. Dubay explains it this way, he says, we tend to suppose that if only we could find the ideal community, be it a marital or religious or clerical, if only we could move or be or live somewhere else, if only we religious at a different superior, or if only we work with different employees, if only we had more money or less money, then we would skyrocket in prayer. Not so, says St. Teresa, for, "The time is always propitious for God to grant His favors to those who truly serve Him," unquote. So our outward circumstances aren't very important if we're really dedicated to doing the will of God. Our outward circumstances are not excuses because God is always bigger than our circumstances, even though they do affect us.
The third condition for growth in prayer, St. Teresa says that it's not enough just to obey the commandments. She says we need to be generously going beyond what is strictly required. Fr. Dubay puts it this way, he says, a man in love happily fulfills obligations, but he's eager to do much more. He gives the beloved everything and anything that will please her that lies in his power to give. The saints say it this way, they say, everything we gain comes from what we give. Another way of putting it is you get out of it what you put into it. This complete generosity is so crucial for prayer growth that St. Teresa says, "There is no better test than this of whether or not our prayer attains to union, that is giving everything we can." So being generous in prayer, and obeying God, serving Him, serving others too, it's necessary for growth.
Fourth condition for growth in prayer is purification, specifically purification of our faults. All the disorder that we harbor in our minds and in our hearts needs to be rooted out. Even after St. Teresa had been purified a great deal and was receiving sublime contemplation from the Lord, she still saw an abundance of imperfections in herself. She writes, “How I fail, how I fail, how I fail. I could say it a thousand times, how many imperfections I see in myself. What laxity in serving you, Lord. Indeed, I think sometimes I would like to be without consciousness in order not to know how much evil there is about myself.”  St. Therese would have told her, don't fret over the imperfections, they're actually a sign that Jesus came for you because He came for the imperfect and the sinners, not for the righteous, but that's a whole other discussion. This is St. Teresa of Jesus we're focusing on here.
The fifth condition for growth in prayer is penance. St. Teresa does not counsel imprudent penances, but she doesn't want us pampering ourselves either. It's easy to swing from one to another, right, from imprudence to pampering yourself to imprudence and back again. One of the best remedies is to speak to a confessor or spiritual director regarding what penances we should do and what penances we should not do.
Sixth condition for growth in prayer is that God gives growth according to our degree of readiness for it. If we're more receptive, He will give us more, if less, then less. Father Dubay says that a receptive readiness for infused prayer is far, far more important than any number of methods or techniques that we use or try in prayer. St. Teresa also says that God gives His gifts in proportion to the love which He bears us, but she ties that in with our degree of generosity as well, too, tied together with that.
Seventh condition for growth in prayer is more of a warning than a condition. It's the fact that it's possible to go backwards in our prayer life rather than go forwards. Thomas Dubay says just like an acorn growing into an oak tree can at any point fall into decline, disease, and even death, so a person who has begun well in the life of prayer can become lax and stagnant and possibly even abandon prayer altogether.
Father Dubay says that trivial selfishnesses often center on our relationships with others are what affect this, be it coldness or insensitivity or oversensitivity, be it insistence on our views or on our own ways, unwillingness to be wronged, not just apparently wronged but truly wronged, being dominating in our conversations, being vain regarding our positions or accomplishments, refusing to be admonished or corrected by our superiors or by our peers. These are all things which hinder our life of prayer. People advanced in prayer need to be especially alert to these and other subtle attractions to mediocrity that we still have within ourselves.
The eighth condition for growth in prayer is the sincere, earnest practice of virtue, humility, temperance, patience, love of neighbor, mercy, et cetera. Practicing virtue directly causes a deepening in our prayer life, and as prayer develops and grows, it actually becomes easier to be humble, patient, loving, kind. Prayer and virtue reinforce one another, just like iron sharpens iron.
Ninth and last condition, as if eight were not enough for growing in prayer, you know, eight's not enough, well, here's a ninth one, simply determination. Listen to how St. Teresa counsels those who want to be serious about prayer. She says, it's most important, all important indeed, that they should begin well by making an earnest and most determined resolve not to halt until they reach their goal, whatever may come, whatever may happen to them, however hard they may have to labor, whoever may complain of them, whether they reach their goal or die on the road or have no heart to confront the trials which they meet, whether the very world dissolves before them, she says. You can feel her Spanish blood boiling with those words, right? Determination, determination, never give up.
Let's ask Our Lady today for the grace to cooperate with more with Our Lord's growth plan for us in prayer. Let's also ask St. Teresa to help us to become the person of prayer that God created us to be.
Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.