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St. Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle is a guide to the spiritual life. The book explains how a soul can journey through seven stages — shown as seven mansions — that end with total union with God.
Selections from Interior Castle
“Ah, my Lord! It is here that we have need of Thine aid, without which we can do nothing. Of Thy mercy, allow not this soul to be deluded and led astray when its journey is but begun. Give it light so that it may see how all its welfare consists in this and may flee from evil companionship.”
“As these Mansions are now getting near to the place where the King dwells, they are of great beauty and there are such exquisite things to be seen and appreciated in them that the understanding is incapable of describing them in any way accurately without being completely obscure to those devoid of experience.”
“Souls without prayer are like people whose bodies or limbs are paralysed: they possess feet and hands but they cannot control them.”
“The door of entry into this castle is prayer and meditation.”
“Let us now imagine that this castle, as I have said, contains many mansions, some above, others below, others at each side; and in the centre and midst of them all is the chiefest mansion where the most secret things pass between God and the soul.”
“I want you to consider what will be the state of this castle, so beautiful and resplendent this Orient pearl, this tree of life, planted in the living waters of life — namely, in God — when the soul falls into a mortal sin. No thicker darkness exists, and there is nothing dark and black which is not much less so than this.”
“This Lord of ours is so anxious that we should desire Him and strive after His companionship that He calls us ceaselessly, time after time, to approach Him.”
