SAINT TERESA of AVILA’S STRUGGLE FOR ENCLOSURE I would like to explain the words traditional observance. By the words traditional observance what I mean is the observance as established by St. Teresa of Avila, our founding Saint, during her lifetime.
St. Teresa fought hard and suffered much to establish the observances of poverty and enclosure. We are blessed to have the Constitutions that she herself wrote, as well as her many personal letters and her teachings as recorded in The Way of Perfection, Interior Castle, The Foundations, and in her autobiography, The Book of Her Life. She also wrote much poetry, a commentary on the Song of Songs and her Counsels for Visitators, addressed to those appointed by the Apostolic See to make an annual visitation to each monastery for private consultation with each nun.
The Practice of Enclosure: There is no doubt that the practice of enclosure was cherished by St. Teresa of Avila. During her youth as a nun at the Carmelite monastery in Avila, Spain, during the 16th century, enclosure was not strictly practiced or required. She was often sent out to beg for alms or to console benefactors, in whose homes she would live for long periods of time. This and the practice of frequent parlor visits and the general accessibility of the monastery to the public made life at the monastery busy and distracting. Nuns whose families had the means could purchase a suite of rooms for their daughters. Friends and relatives could stay for long periods of time. St. Teresa, who had the title Madame (Dona in Spanish) and whose father was a merchant, had a kitchen and oratory, and probably an extra bedroom where her female relatives could sleep.
The custom of papal enclosure (called papal because it is canonically defined) began as early as 1247, when Pope Innocent IV confirmed the rule established by St. Clare of Assisi. This is the same pope who approved the mitigated Rule of Saint Albert (in the same year) for the Carmelite hermits who were living on Mt. Carmel before their migration into Europe. The Rule of St. Albert requires that, when not occupied with necessary labor, each hermit “remain alone in his own cell or nearby, pondering the law of the Lord day and night and keeping watch at his prayers.”
During Teresa’s lifetime, the Council of Trent took measures to strengthen the practice of enclosure, and there were some new communities of women who practiced strict enclosure. Although St. Teresa was not required by the law of the Church to keep enclosure, she wanted to do so. After establishing her first foundation of reformed Carmelites in Avila, Spain, she writes: “. . . drawing up all my strength, I promised before the Blessed Sacrament to do all I could to obtain permission to come and live in this house and to make a promise of enclosure when able to do it in good conscience [Life 36:9]."
Here we see how St. Teresa used the word enclosure to mean the practice of what would later become the law for Carmelites [see Constitutions, On the Enclosure, 15 – 20].
The Tradition of Enclosure: The practice of enclosure is an ancient way of life grounded in the anchorite, or eremitic, spirituality. As early as the third century after Christ’s Death, St. Anthony of the Desert’s biography written by St. Athanasius served “as a sufficient rule for monks” for countless men and women who migrated into the deserts of Egypt after the Roman persecution of Christians had more-or-less ceased. These people were seeking the martyrdom of conscience proposed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ as an alternative to the complacency and immorality that had begun to plague even the Christians living in Roman cities.
Many had heard of Anthony, who had lived in strict solitude in an abandoned fort for over twenty years. According to his biography, some people had gone to the fort to see what had become of Anthony, whom they still remembered as the youth who had lived as a hermit in the tombs. Expecting to find an emaciated madman or a pile of bones, much to their surprise:
“Anthony as from a shrine, came forth initiated into the mysteries of the Spirit of God (Life of Anthony by St. Athanasius, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, IV, Select Works and Letters, P. Schaff and H. Wace, section 14)."
To their amazement, they found there a man who looked much the same as he had in his youth, neither too fat nor too thin, neither elated by praise nor cast down by criticism, a man who enjoyed perfect equilibrium, “whose soul had been restored to reason as nature had meant it to be [Ibid. section 94]."
Verbi Sponsa: Instruction on the Contemplative Life and On the Enclosure of Nuns, published by the Apostolic See in 1999, set forth the purpose of the practice of enclosure, what could be called the spirituality of enclosure, as an encounter with Christ on the mountain of the Transfiguration.
Just as St. Peter expressed the desire of all Christians in his words, Lord, it is good for us to be here, so contemplative nuns seek to remain in the presence of Christ in prayer for the sake of the Church. In a particular way, they embody the spirituality of the Blessed Virgin Mary as Bride and Mother of Christ.
St. Teresa’s own words on the subject of enclosure reveal how ardently she sought to establish and to maintain this practice for her nuns. In the history of her foundations, she writes:
“No one but those who experience it will believe the joy that is felt in these foundations once we are enclosed . . . .It seems to me comparable to taking many fish from the river with a net; they cannot live until they are in the water again. So it is with souls accustomed to living in the running streams of their Spouse . . . . [Foundations 31:46]"