The Interior Castle
Teresa of Ávila’s last major work on prayer, written in 1577 for the nuns of her reform. It pictures the soul as a castle of crystal with many rooms, through which the soul passes in seven stages to the central chamber where God dwells.
Teresa says in her preface that she began the book on Trinity Sunday 1577 in the convent at Toledo, under obedience and in poor health, and that she wrote only for her sisters. The closing note dates its completion to the eve of St Andrew in the same year, at St Joseph’s in Ávila.
The work describes seven “mansions”, or sets of rooms, from the outer courts, where the soul first turns to prayer, to the innermost, where she places the closest union with God. It is a guide written from experience for people practising a life of prayer. In the preface she submits her writings to the judgment of the learned men who had commanded them and says that anything in them contrary to the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church would be the fault of ignorance.
Cited in
- 24 August 1562, firm date