One of Christianity’s greatest cartographers is Teresa of Avila, a Carmelite nun who lived in Spain in the 16th century. One of her greatest contributions to mapping the journey of the Christian faith comes in her book Interior Castle. Few other pieces of literature envision the goal of our Christian walk as vividly as Teresa’s. One of her gifts is the way she paints a picture of the goal or telos of our journey.
For Teresa, the destination is not just heaven. This was the destination portrayed in another famous work of spiritual cartography, Paul Bunyan’s 17th century Pilgrim’s Progress. He portrayed Christianity as the journey of a man named “Christian” to “Celestial City” or heaven. That is, the sum of the faith is to make it to heaven.
But Teresa’s work revealed that the terminus of our journey is not living in the greatest place but loving the greatest person. Our destination is not merely a residence in heaven but a relationship with the one in heaven. It’s not reaching a divine address. It’s receiving divine affection.
Interior Castle is an extended exploration of Jesus’ words, “you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him. This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent —Jesus Christ.” (John 17:2-3 CSB) The eternal life Jesus brings is not realized by finally getting off the earth and into heaven. It is realized as we increase our intimacy with Father and son right here, right now on earth. The end toward which we are traveling is relationship not residence, a person not a place. Heaven is a place where that relationship continues to be experienced. Heaven is another context for what is the true focus–communion with God. John Ortberg in Eternity is Now in Session puts it this way: “Our issue with heaven is not so much about getting in; it’s about becoming the kind of person for whom heaven would be an appropriate and welcome setting. If I don’t want the unceasing presence of God in my life now, how could I truly want an eternity in the ceaseless presence of God…” (pg. 14)
That’s why Teresa pictures the journey as movement through a castle filled with many rooms:
“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 center and midst of them all is the chief mansion where the most secret things pass between God and the soul.” (Interior Castle, 42)
The Christian journeys from the outer courtyard of the castle, through successive rooms in the castle, finally reaching the most interior room where complete union with God takes place. Intimacy with God is the point of our daily pilgrimage. Experiencing and expressing his unfathomable love is the destination toward which we are traveling.
This goal is not one which is popular, even in Christian circles. Everyone wants a condo of God’s in heaven. Few actually desire communion with God on earth. Not even Teresa, not at first. For as many as twenty years, Teresa practiced what she might call a “half-hearted” spirituality, dividing her devotion so that God only got part of her, not even the best of her. She pictured herself, and others like here in this way in Interior Castle:
“People are so caught up with worldly cares that they are content simply with remaining in the outer courtyard of the castle and do not desire to enter into the soul’s first interior mansions.” (pg. 37)
“Many souls remain in the outer court of the castle, which is the place occupied by the guards; they are not interested in entering it, and have no idea what there is in that wonderful place, or who dwells in it, or even how many rooms it has.” (pg. 43)
“So accustomed have they grown to living all the time with the reptiles and other creatures to be found in the outer court of the castle that they have almost become like them …” (pg. 43)
But finally, Teresa herself was caught up in rapturous love for God, so much so that she died reciting lines from Song of Songs, that extended love-story in Scripture about God and us. In Interior Castle she invites us into this same love story, urging us toward progressive stages of communion with God.
Keeping this end in mind changes everything. The questions we ask and the things we measure are no longer merely those items which we or our faith community deem essential to making it to heaven. The questions we ask and the things we measure are now those items which are fundamental to intimacy and affection. Relationship practices and behaviors overshadow merely religious practices and behaviors. We are no longer content with those “boundary practices” that ensure we’ve crossed from being “out” of contention to being “in” contention for heaven–baptism, church attendance, tithing, etc. We want more. We hunger and thirst for any habit or ritual or experience that will deepen our awareness of and affection for this God who’s given all of himself for all of us.
The journey becomes one like this poem by Pedro Arupe:
“Nothing is more practical than finding God, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”
