Castle

I have been reading an amazing book entitled The Interior Castle by St Teresa of Jesus. It was written over 400 years ago! Her book focuses on things to do with the soul and I may enter some more postings about this book as I go along. The jist of the book is this;

I began to think of the soul as a castle made of a single diamond in which there are many rooms, just as in Heaven there are many mansions.

Theresa’s friend, the priest Fray Diego de Yepes tells of how;

(God) showed her a most beautiful crystal globe, made in the shape of a castle, and containing seven mansions, in the seventh and innermost of which was the king of Glory, in the greatest splendour, illuminating and beautifying them all. The nearer one got to the centre, the stronger was the light; outside the palace limits everything was foul, dark and infested with toads, vipers and other venomous creatures.

It’s a mystical journey to the centre of the soul – where God resides.

She speaks so splendidly of the secrets she discover about God as she nears the centre, it really makes me realize how I can never allow myself to limit the depth of my relationship with Him. She speaks of so much mystery and so much wonder.

She also makes another interesting point – referring to how the light gets stronger the nearer to the centre you get. She states that it’s only dimmer on the outside chambers because the traveller can’t see the light properly – we are oblivious to it – only seeing a dimmed down version of the light – a bit like having welding goggles on perhaps!!

There is so much to learn from this book I feel but I am going to have to read it a few times I think. She speaks of a “prayer of recollection”. I had to look this up in the dictionary to try and understand the word recollection. It reads: person’s memory or their compass. Perhaps this prayer is about the soul remembering it’s first love, it’s entanglement in and with Christ – our “true north”.