LIMA, Peru.
The Teresian Association in Peru convened a large number of people to celebrate the V Centenary of St. Teresa of Avila last October.
About 200 people gathered to celebrate the occasion. The aim was to "revive the beauty of the spirituality of Teresa and listen to the urgent needs of our world to restore the beauty of this spirituality."
A video with faces of Teresa and pictures of Avila welcomed people as they entered the hall. Maria Eugenia Gallego and Ivonne Salas explained the meaning of the celebration, and Alejandra Sanchez, Peruvian dancer, performed a contemporary dance that set the mood for the audience.
Then followed the lecture, "Teresa and the mystique of the flesh-human in the words of a woman," given by one of the best scholars of Peru, Fr. Luis Alberto Ascenjo, a Carmelite, an expert connoisseur of Teresa de Ahumada. He managed to draw the adudience’s admiration and enthusiasm to deepen into the spirituality of Teresa of Jesus.
Teresa, timeless and multifaceted
The speaker stressed that all those who admire and love Teresa participate in the commitment to make her be re-born in these times. He noted how the genius of this woman, mystic and learned, but, above all, human, is a good reason to listen to her. He presented her as an inspirational figure and counselor to whoever wishes to live fully their human identity from within and in search of authenticity and freedom.
Some sentences that encouraged us to deepen further:
"An aspect that I consider the greatest and most important found in Teresa School, which is also one of my convictions, is: humanity is a mediation of divine experience."
"She matured by loving the humanity of Jesus to understand and express the love of God. She tries to put into words the ineffability of her lived experience.”
"Her mystical experience is a deep inner life transmittedwith a particular affection.”
"Teresa officially moved within limits, but she not only went beyond them, she questioned and reformulated them so masterfully that not even her critics, all men, were able to prevent this.”
"Pedro Poveda got it right! When he understood Teresa well, he confirmed his own intuitions and opened the door to the presence of women in academia and in the social transformation endeavor through education. We could say that he identified the main aspects of the person and the thought of Teresa: Mystic and woman; mystical realism of everyday life; woman and instruction/study; woman and authority; woman and passionate lover."
Two people who commented on the conference, Consuelo Denegri and Janett Ramirez, explained the reason for the name of Teresian Association, noting the character of the charism of the Work founded by St. Pedro PovedaThey said that, in the style of Teresa, the spirituality of the incarnation is what encourages the Christian vocation and the mission of those who are part of this universal Work.
Bertha de la Portilla, on behalf of the Association, thanked the audience and encouraged everyone to continue to be happy Christians, humanizing our world along the paths that Teresa has bestowed on history. A family toast completed the happiness of Teresa’s feast day in Peru.
Elsa Tueros, from Lima.