Film explores spiritual life and sexuality of 'sassy' Saint Teresa

Timos Online (UK) ^ | August 25, 2006 | Dalya Alberge

[COBOL2Java]

Here's this gentleman's prior work:

Color me singularly unimpressed by his stewardship of a movie on St. Teresa of Avila...

[Peach]

This is really outrageous. The left and non-religious among us just cannot stand that we have anyone we look up to.

My confirmation name is Theresa and so named because of this particular saint and I am taking this quite personally.

[Claud]

“So far, [the Catholic Church has]only offered two models to women — The Virgin Mother, which, in my opinion, is an aberration and quite harmful to women

One need read no further.

Loriga, I don't have words for your monumental stupidity...so I pray instead that when you leave this world, your insides don't turn to charcoal when you catch a furtive glimpse of the Holy Virgin of Virgins in all her God-given beauty.

[ichabod1]

I'm a man and my confirmation name is Therese, for the other one. I think it wonderful that a Catholic man can take the name of a female saint and nobody bats an eye. I think it's telling regarding how women are perceived in the Catholic Church. If anything, we put them on a bit of a pedestal and ascribe to them virtues that they could never live up to -- regular women that is.

[Pyro7480]

So far, [the Catholic Church has]only offered two models to women — The Virgin Mother, which, in my opinion, is an aberration and quite harmful to women

There is one creature who thinks the Virgin Mother is an "abberation" - the one who is often depicted lying underneath her heel. So I know where this character is getting his notions from.

[Juana la Loca]

I agree. The Church has given us many holy women to emulate. Loriga is clearly a moron.

One small correction to your post, Edith Stein is not a Doctor of the Church, though many believe she eventually will be.

[ELS]

Perhaps the "filmmaker" is confused by Bernini's statue of St. Teresa in spiritual ecstasy.

[Pyro7480]

You're more charitable than I am, ELS. But if that's part of it, he's apparently not the only one.

From Ecstasy of St. Theresa

Some modern critics dismiss the semi-syncopal religious experiences as orgasmic psychologic phenomena rather than spiritual encounters. In particular, the body posture and facial expression of St. Teresa have caused some to assign her experience as one of climactic moment.

Titillating as such theory may be, however, most serious scholars of Baroque scholars doubt that Bernini, a follower of the mystical exercises of followers of St. Ignatius of Loyola consciously intended to depict an episode of lust fulfilled. Bernini here matures his attempt to express the facial and body expressions of a neurologic state of divine joy, and the results are a transfiguring coma, the so-called Sleep of God, common to the mystics. It would have not been unusual for devout daily church-goers like Bernini to spend hours at prayer each day. Mystics like Theresa would affect days, often unfed, to achieve such visions. The expression here is more like that of the joy of heavenly encounter found in Bernini's Blessed Ludovica Albertoni in her deathbed.

It just goes to show that modern society is obsessed and addicted to sex and all the perversions of it.

[wagglebee]

“So far, they’ve only offered two models to women — The Virgin Mother, which, in my opinion, is an aberration and quite harmful to women, and the redeemed whore symbolised by Mary Magdalene... The Church hasn’t been able to find a better explanation for women ..."

This is almost too pathetic to even comment on.

Scripture portrays Mary Magdalene as a devout follower of our Lord. Nowhere does it indicate that she was a whore and there is certainly nothing that would lead to the conclusion that she was the wife of Jesus which seems to be the newest blasphemy.

The feminazi left seeks to destroy the Church. All of their attempts thus far have been soundly rejected, so now they are simply fabricating nonsense to further their agenda.

I do not know nearly as much as I should about St. Teresa, but it sounds to me as if they are trying to impose modern perceptions on an historical figure. She was a very charismatic and fascinating woman in her time, so they try to extrapolate from this that it must have been a result of her sexuality. What the left cannot seem to comprehend is that when a person experiences a true relationship with God, it changes them and others will see this in their outward appearance. St. Teresa's relationship with our Lord was beyond anything most of us can ever imagine and to try to diminish this by perverting her life on film is an insult to all Christians.

[Mrs. Don-o]

You're right: Edith Stein has been proposed as Doctor of the Church, but not yet so proclaimed.

St. Bridget of Sweden, St. Catherine of Siena and St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein of Auschwitz) were proclaimed by John Paul II as Co-Patronesses of Europe.

BTW, St. Bridget was the mother of 8, widow, visionary, and religious foundress. And Patroness of Europe. Pretty good for a Church that says women are all either virgins or whores. [sarc/, if anybody out there doesn't get it..]

[Biggirl]

Also do not forget the women who got the devotion to the Divine Mercy started, St. Maria Faustina. She is a great female saint.

[Biggirl]

Also for American saints, there is a saint that was a member of a rich Philadepha family, St. Katherine Drexel. She had used her inherited money to start up an order to educate African and Native Americans.

[technochick99]

You could also question just what is wrong with a redeemed sinner as well? The Lord knows that this cradle Catholic sinned in my 25 years wandering in the desert of atheism before coming back home. Forgiveness, the prodigal son/daughter, and redemption are all very good things for people to reflect on...

[Nihil Obstat]

Blessed be God in His angels and in His saints. Saint Teresa pray for us. Sacred Heart of Jesus have mercy on us. Ray Loriga and Geraldine Chaplin, go soak your heads.

[RexBeach]

I agree...did somewhat the same thing, but I always went to mass on Christmas and Easter.

The guy who made the film is still a meathead.

Yours thoughts are well taken.

[mrs. a]

“So far, they’ve only offered two models to women — The Virgin Mother, which, in my opinion, is an aberration and quite harmful to women, and the redeemed whore symbolised by Mary Magdalene... The Church hasn’t been able to find a better explanation for women ..."

I was always taught that the Virgin Mary was a model of prayerful acceptance to women AND MEN. None of the boys or girls in my religion classes had any problem with that!

[escapefromboston]

HAHAHAHA. This was the first thing I thought of when I read the word "Sassy".

[LadyDoc]

Actually, if you read her autobiography, St. Teresa liked men (i.e. a virgin, but not a prissy man hating virgin or a clueless asexual virgin nor a man hating lesbian).

She was probably what we call a "tom boy"...tried to run away to be a martyr with her brother as a kid...and when she was a teenager, got in trouble with her strict father over an incident which probably was just meeting a boyfriend outside of her home, which in those days was a no no.

So her father shipped her off to a convent school, where she became religious...but not too religious.

She decided to be a nun because she was worried she'd succumb to temptations to sin and go to hell...but she didn't chose the strict Augustinian nuns who taught her, but the liberal Carmelites...

Her reason was that they weren't strict, but there might have been another reason: The Augustinians required "blood lines" and her grandfather was Jewish...

While in the Carmelite training period (novitiate) she had an episode of illness where people thought she was dead. In today's psychiatry, she was catatonic from a dissociation reaction, something usually associated with sexual tension. She recovered and became a nun who enjoyed visiting outside the convent and with visitors, both men and women, in the convent parlour.

Even her "visions" might have been imagination or perhaps real visions with a lot of egotism... in those days when lots of people had "visions"

By today's standards, all this was innocent: One doubts she did more than flirt.

But at age 30 she was "born again" and the visions probably became a genuine voice of God...

She went on to become a reformer of the Carmelite orders, and continued to have friendships with men...but she no longer had visits in the parlor nor visited relatives. She spent most of her time in prayer, and used her friendships with others to promote love of God and reform of the very lax religious life in Convents and monasteries (you think Pedophilia is new? Read Catholic reformers about the bad monasteries back then)...
And she reminded an increasingly rigid intolerant Spanish church that God is love..

.and was investigated by the inquisition for such a radical thought. Her writing of her life was an "answer" to the Inquisition...luckily, they didn't find her "tainted" Jewish heritage, or she probably would have been killed as a heretic...

Will her "sexiness" ruin the film? depends how they present it. Sounds like the filmmakers are clueless, so I worry about the film...

[Running On Empty]

Would you please explain to me how it can be a definitive diagnosis, over 400 years later, that Teresa suffered from "dissociation reaction"?