Body as a form of communication with god
...good of my soul” (30). It almost comes across as a sort of tug-of-war with God. That she, on one side, is yearning for the finer things in life, and God, on the other end, is trying to make her see and feel suffering. “The lord was much more anxious than I to place me in that state that would be best for me. He sent me a serious illness” (31). It is evident that in the eyes of Saint Teresa this illness is a direct act of God. There is a sense that her destiny is predetermined. God knows her fate, and so she is accepting everything as it comes. As she goes into great detail describing the extent of her sickness, the seriousness of the suffering she endures is really shocking: “usually semi-conscious and sometimes lost consciousness altogether” (35). Then aside from sickness, she states that she “suffered the greatest tortures from the remedies they applied” (35). Considering how she does not attempt to describe the cause of her sickness, one begins to wonder how miraculous it is that this woman faced so much pain with the only given reason that it was an act of God out of her wickedness. It comes across as though God may be communicating to Saint Teresa through the employment of her body and health. Illness becomes an almost meditative state. Even after surviving such a life-threatening ailment, and seeing death in front of her, she wants to suffer. When one of the nuns at her convent dies of open sores on her stomach, and “all the sisters were frightened by her disease,” Saint Teresa is “envied by her patience” (39). She asks God to send her any disease “provided He sent as much patience with it” (39). She proves to be an incredibly strong and enduring woman. Her strength is through God. And she does not just survive these near death experiences; she grows more religious, more patient, more devoted to God. To Saint Teresa, her diseases are more than just a close encounter with death, but a way of prevailing over the devil. “I clearly saw...