Today we continue our reading of St. Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle with the second mansion.
In this mansion are people who have begun to pray. They want to move on with their spiritual life but lack the discipline to do so because of attachment to sin. In spite of that attachment though, the Lord continually calls souls that reside in this second room of the Castle.
God holds these souls dear, she tells us, and speaks to them through others, through sickness and troubles, through spiritual reading and sometimes in prayer.
The more we open ourselves to hearing God, however, the more the devil comes after us, so we must be on guard. Souls in this mansion struggle with the pleasures of this world and of the opinion of others. The temptation is to return to the first mansion and not to go forward. The temptation is also there to run away altogether like the Prodigal Son in the Bible. The examples of others' whose good opinions we crave, sometimes sway us away from the Faith.
St. Teresa advises that we surround ourselves with those advanced in the spiritual life and not be tempted by those who would call us out from the journey to union with God. It is important to follow God's will and not to expect Him to follow ours. There is no magic formula that is necessary--only perseverance.
It is important to meditate on Christ. This, she says, is the only way to heaven.
