Prayer to St. Teresa of Ávila for Divine Love (by St. Alphonsus Liguori)
St. Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582) reformed the Carmelite order, founded seventeen convents, and wrote spiritual classics such as The Interior Castle and The Way of Perfection. In 1970 she became one of the first women declared a Doctor of the Church. Her life was marked by a burning love of God, famously pictured in the vision of an angel piercing her heart with a fiery dart.
St. Alphonsus Liguori, himself a Doctor of the Church and a great lover of St. Teresa, composed the prayer below asking for "a spark of that holy flame" that consumed her. Pope Leo XIII indulgenced it in 1898. Pray it on her feast, October 15, or whenever your love for God feels cold.
The Prayer
O seraphic Virgin, St. Teresa, beloved Spouse of the Crucified, thou who didst burn with such ardent love whilst on earth for thy God and mine, and who art now inflamed with an even purer and greater love in heaven; who didst always long to see Him loved by all men: obtain for me also, I beseech thee, a spark of that holy flame which may make me forget the world and creatures and self; and may all my thoughts, all my desires, and all my affections be occupied always in carrying out, in all things, whether pleasant or painful, the will of the Supreme Good, who deserves to be infinitely obeyed and loved. Obtain for me this grace, thou who findest so great favor with God, that I may be wholly inflamed, as thou art, with divine love. Amen.
St. Teresa of Jesus, pray for us.
See also St. Teresa's own bookmark prayer, Let Nothing Disturb Thee.
Sources: Prayer of St. Alphonsus de Liguori to St. Teresa, from The New Raccolta (Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham & Son, from the 1898 Roman edition; indulgenced by Pope Leo XIII, April 22, 1898). Public domain.
Comments