Feast Day of Saint Teresa of Avila

Mass Celebrated by Archbishop Denis Hart
at Carmelite Monastery, Kew,
on Friday, 15 th October, 2004, at 10.30am

Introduction

My dear Brothers and Sisters,

On behalf of Mother Prioress and the Sisters, and on my own behalf, I welcome you here to Carmel today to celebrate the feast of Saint Teresa of Avila. It is a real joy for me to be here with you all. I wish especially to greet the Carmelites in the name of the whole Archdiocese and to thank them for their work of prayer, which enriches us in ways we barely know.

Among the Doctors of the Church, Saint Teresa is famous, especially as a teacher and guide of the spiritual journey. As we continue on our pilgrim way to God, let us turn humbly to ask for his abundant forgiveness and for strength for the journey.

Homily

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I would like to say a few words first of all to the Carmelite community. I am very happy to be here at Carmel once more. Any bishop is delighted to have a contemplative community in his diocese. I want to assure you of the important role you have in the life and work of the Archdiocese of Melbourne, and of how much I appreciate and value the hidden work that you do and the witness that you give. If you were not here, our life would be much impoverished, perhaps in ways that we could not tell; but in faith we say without hesitation that your prayer and your presence enriches us all.

You have a special vocation, by which you are called to live your lives with uncommon attentiveness to God. As Pope John Paul said some years ago, the contemplative life is “the unceasing renewal of a ‘yes’ which opens the doors of one’s being to welcome the Saviour. You speak this ‘yes’ in a daily assent to the work of God and in tireless contemplation of the mysteries of salvation.” [Address to Cloistered Nuns, 10/9/’95].

Your faithfulness to prayer, both in the liturgy and in solitude, your willingness to build a community of love, your generosity in following the path the Lord has marked out for you, your humble witness to the mystery of God among us, your intercession for the whole People of God -- all these things are a real service to all of us. It is important that amid the complexities of the modern world, we realise this.

Saint Teresa wanted her nuns to have a particularly lively sense of the apostolic dimension of their vocation and of its significance for the whole Church, and Saint Thérèse, whose shrine this is, came to see her life as a vocation to be “Love in the heart of the Church”.

A contemplative community like yours is a constant call to the local Church and to every Christian not to lose sight of our heart as a community and as individuals, the heart where the Spirit never ceases to pray in us in ways too deep for words. Yours is a message spoken quietly, but it is heard far and wide, and I thank you for your faithfulness. I thank you, too, for so generously being an oasis of peace and reflection for so many of the faithful, especially women, who continue to find a welcome here at Carmel and a kind of spiritual home.

I am also happy to have this opportunity to say a few words to you, my brothers and sisters, who are here today to celebrate the feast of Saint Teresa. Many of you, I know, have a special affection for this monastery and for the community, and draw strength here for your own journey to God.

One of the great themes of Saint Teresa’s life, and also of her teaching, was friendship. She had a great gift for it, and her loyalty to her friends, as well as her candour about the ups and downs of friendship, is one of the things that makes her such a human and attractive saint. She did not mind telling friends what to do, or nagging them if they did not do it; she did not mind asking them for favours; she could not help having favourites; she was hurt when friends were distant, either geographically or emotionally; she wanted the Reformed convents she founded to be communities enlivened by genuine friendship between the sisters.

Most of all, she saw life with God as a life of friendship. Her description of prayer is justly famous: Prayer is basically a conversation with a friend who we know loves us.

In the end, I think we can say, Teresa’s teaching is summarised in her invitation to us to be the friends of God; or, to put it more precisely, to accept God’s invitation to friendship. In Teresa’s imagination God is the most splendid and noble of kings and we are called to be friends of His Majesty.

As we celebrate her feast today, God renews this invitation for all of us. We are friends of the Lord: old or young, sick or well, poor or rich, we share the work and the mission of Christ. He walks beside us and lives in us. In the Gospel today, Jesus spoke of a spring of water inside us, which would well up to eternal life: that spring is the love and friendship of God, ever faithful, ever strong, ever new. This is the mystery of divine life and grace that Teresa urges us to seek in the deepest centre of our own selves.

Let us thank God today for the gifts he has given us: for the Carmelite community here, and the vocation we all share to be the friends of God; for St Teresa and all the saints, our friends above; for all those we love and who love us; and above all for Christ our Saviour, who calls us “not disciples but friends”.

Let us pray, too, that the Lord’s example may continue to challenge us to have no-one as our enemy, but to extend the hand of friendship to everyone, and to see the face of God in one another.

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne.