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Visions of christ

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Often appears with: religious persecution and toleration · dreams, sleep, and visions · st. peter’s feast day · spiritual discernment · saints’ intercession · rumors and reputational attacks · religious persecution · prayer for guidance · non-imaginary locutions · miracles and divine intervention · martyrdom and persecution · humility and obedience

Usually: narrative (3) · injustice endured (2) · reverence (2) · crisis of belief (1) · detachment (1) · lament (1) · resignation (1) · wonder (1)

Quotable
“What greater loss, what greater blindness, what greater calamity, can there be than making much of that which is nothing!” Teresa of Ávila, Saint, The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, of the Order of Our · observation

The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, of the Order of Our Lady of Carmel primary

Teresa of Ávila, Saint · c. 1562
Chapter XXV., § 4, St. Teresa, speaking of the difference between the Divine and the imaginary locutions, says that a person commending a matter to God with great earnestness, may think that he hears whether his prayer will be granted or not: y es muy posible, "and this is quite possible," but he who has ever heard a Divine locution will see at once that this assurance is something quite different. Mr. Lewis, following the old Spanish editions, translated "And it is most impossible," whereas both the autograph and the context demand the wording I have ventured to substitute. > Chapter XXVI. (2/3)

She resumes her life story: after two years praying for safer direction and trying to desire change, she experiences a Christ-vision on St. Peter’s feast, feels constant presence without form, and is reassured as not imaginary.

some of them I could mention. Here, then, are so many reasons for believing that they come from God, as make it impossible, I believe, for anybody to mistake them. 4. The safest course in these things is to declare, without fail, the whole state of the soul, together with the graces our Lord gives me, to a confessor who is learned, and obey him. I do so; and if I did not, I should have no peace. Nor is it right th…

The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, of the Order of Our Lady of Carmel primary

Teresa of Ávila, Saint · c. 1562
Chapter XXV., § 4, St. Teresa, speaking of the difference between the Divine and the imaginary locutions, says that a person commending a matter to God with great earnestness, may think that he hears whether his prayer will be granted or not: y es muy posible, "and this is quite possible," but he who has ever heard a Divine locution will see at once that this assurance is something quite different. Mr. Lewis, following the old Spanish editions, translated "And it is most impossible," whereas both the autograph and the context demand the wording I have ventured to substitute. > Chapter XXIX. (2/7)

Teresa describes how she saw the risen Christ in various settings (the Host, the cross, the Garden) and faced suspicion, persecution, and clerical fear, but insists she never regretted the visions.

take from us these mercies and His grace, and we may be lost for ever. We must therefore walk in His fear while we are living in this our exile. 4. Our Lord showed Himself to me almost always as He is after His resurrection. It was the same in the Host; only at those times when I was in trouble, and when it was His will to strengthen me, did He show His wounds. Sometimes I saw Him on the cross, in the Garden, crow…

The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, of the Order of Our Lady of Carmel primary

Teresa of Ávila, Saint · c. 1562
Chapter XXV., § 4, St. Teresa, speaking of the difference between the Divine and the imaginary locutions, says that a person commending a matter to God with great earnestness, may think that he hears whether his prayer will be granted or not: y es muy posible, "and this is quite possible," but he who has ever heard a Divine locution will see at once that this assurance is something quite different. Mr. Lewis, following the old Spanish editions, translated "And it is most impossible," whereas both the autograph and the context demand the wording I have ventured to substitute. > Chapter XXXIV. (7/9)

Teresa distinguishes divine from imaginary locutions and then narrates visions in which Christ shows joy, assuring her of divine presence in such encounters, and reports a false rumor leading to persecutions and foretold fulfillment.

here,--he who follows what is lost, is lost himself; and what greater loss, what greater blindness, what greater calamity, can there be than making much of that which is nothing! 21. I now return to that which I had begun to speak of. I was in the greatest joy, beholding that soul. It seemed as if our Lord would have me see clearly the treasures He had laid up in it; and so, when I considered the favour our Lord h…