Table Of ContentThe deepesT inTimACy
of divine pArTnership
A
The theme of Enkindling Love is God’s desire for partnership with us. Excerpts from the h
l
seven dwelling places of Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle are interspersed with brief selections g
r
from John of the Cross’s mystical trilogy, The Dark Night of the Soul, Spiritual Canticle, and The e
Living Flame of Love and scholarly commentary, in order to show the seven stages of growth and n
transformation. The book chronicles our partnership with God as we accept the divine invitation
to deepening friendship and intimacy.
Praise for Enkindling Love
“With prose that is as lucid as it is lyrical, Enkindling Loveis a gift. This guide to Teresa and John’s
major works reveals the Spanish mystics as passionate teachers and systematic theologians de-
termined to share their transformative experience of God’s love. Gillian Ahlgren makes acces- e
sible their major insight: the inherent coherence between contemplation and loving action in the n
world.” k
alison Weber, University of Virginia i
n
d
“Readers familiar with Gillian Ahlgren’s earlier writing on Teresa of Avila have come to expect
first-rate scholarship coupled with profound personal insight. Enkindling Love lives up to the au- l
i
thor’s high standards. Ahlgren’s new book not only deepens our understanding of two of Spain’s n
greatest mystics, but also guides us toward a more intimate, authentic relationship with God.”
g
Barbara Mujica, georgetown University
l
“Gillian Ahlgren offers a valuable guide for reading selected texts from both Teresa of Avila’s o
Interior Castle and John of the Cross’s major works. Her careful choices and explanatory in- v
terpretations throughout the book emphasize the central theme these two eminent mystical e
theologians accent in their writings: a transformative love—a profound union with God that
awakens love far beyond the boundaries of the individual self. Bookended between a com-
prehensive introduction influenced by much of the latest historical, literary, and theological
scholarship related to the Carmelite Saints and a final erudite chapter tracing the complicated
reception history of their legacy, Enkindling Loveillumines a pathway into some of the most re-
markable contemplative writings of Christianity. It offers to readers the transformative energy
these works of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross convey.”
Constancefitzgerald, oCD, Baltimore Carmel Monastery
Gillian T. W. ahlGrenis professor of theology at Xavier University. She is the author of
four books, includingTeresa of Avila and the Politics of Sanctity (1996) and Entering Teresa of Avila’s
InteriorCastle(2005), and the founding director of the Institute for Spirituality and Social Justice at enkindling love
Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio. She is also the founder of www.mysticallife.org.
The legacy of Teresa of Avila
and John of the Cross
Religion / HistoRy of CHRistianity
gillian T. W. Ahlgren
Mapping
the
TradiTion
Series Preface
Mapping the TraditionSeries
Paul Rorem, series advisor
Mapping the Tradition is a series of brief, compact guides to pivotal
thinkers in Christian history. Each volume in this series focuses upon
a particular figure and provides a concise but lucid introduction to
the central features of each thinker’s work and sketches the lasting
significance of that thinker for the history of Christian theology.
As well, the series utilizes primary source works from each figure
as an entry point for exposition and exploration. Guided by leading
scholarsinhistoryandtheology,primarysourcetextsarereproduced
with explanatory commentary, and are accompanied by orientational
essaystothecontext,contours,andhistoricalandconceptuallegacyof
the corpus.
The series is designed for beginning and intermediate students, as
wellasinterestedgeneralreaders,whowillbenefitfromclear,helpful
surveys of thinkers, texts, and theologies from across the epochs of
Christian history and introduction to major issues and key historical
and intellectual points of development.
Volumes in the series:
Gillian T. W. Ahlgren, Enkindling Love: The Legacy of Teresa of Avila and
John of the Cross
Paul Rorem,The Dionysian Mystical Tradition
Forthcoming:
Khaled Anatolios,Irenaeus of Lyons: The Making of the Great Tradition
Romanus Cessario, O.P. and Cajetan Cuddy, O.P., Thomas and the
Thomists: The Achievements of Thomas Aquinas and his Interpreters
Robert Kolb,Luther and Christian Freedom
Andrew Louth,John of Damasus: The Radiance of Orthodoxy
Paul R. Sponheim, Existing Before God: Søren Kierkegaard and the Human
Venture
Terrence N. Tice, Scheleiermacher: The Psychology of Christian Faith and
Life
Thomas G. Weinandy and Daniel A. Keating, Athanasius: Trinitarian-
Incarnational Soteriology and Its Reception
Enkindling Love
Enkindling Love
The Legacy of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross
Gillian T. W. Ahlgren
Fortress Press
Minneapolis
ENKINDLING LOVE
The Legacy of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross
Copyright © 2016 Fortress Press. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations
in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner
without prior written permission from the publisher.
Visit http://www.augsburgfortress.org/copyrights/ or write to Permissions,
Augsburg Fortress, Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440.
Cover design: Tory Herman
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Print ISBN: 978-1-4514-9009-1
eBook ISBN: 978-1-5064-0560-5
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z329.48-1984.
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
This book was produced using Pressbooks.com, and PDF rendering was done by
PrinceXML.
For Michael Joseph
with deepest gratitude and true joy
“This fire of love in you enkindles the souls of others,
and with every other virtue
you will be always awakening them…”
Teresa of Avila,Interior Castle, VII:4:14
God,
being God,
seeks to make us gods by participation,
just as fire
makes all things into fire.
John of the Cross,Sayings of Light and Love, 106
Contents
Abbreviations xi
Preface xiii
1. Introduction 1
2. Excerpts from Teresa’sInterior Castle 17
3. John of the Cross 71
4. Locating Teresa and John in the Larger Christian 129
Mystical Tradition:
A Complicated Reception
Appendix: The Mystical Ladder 155
of Divine Love
Bibliography 159
Index of Names and Places 165
Index of Subjects 167
Index of Scripture 173
