You should take no notice of the temptation to give up prayer and should thank God for your desire of practicing it. Be assured that your will wishes to pray and loves to be in God’s presence. Nature complains at the idea of using self-constraint. When you feel oppressed, you should move occasionally to some place where you can look at the sky and should walk about for a short time. This will not break off your prayer, and human frailty must be humored lest nature succumb. We are seeking God by such means since we take them for His sake, and the soul must be led gently. However, in this as in all else, the Father Rector will know better than I how to advise you.

We are writing to the Father Visitor who is travelling by slow stages, though the important matter is that you should interview him as he will visit your neighborhood.

I am in good health; God grant that you are and that the cure may benefit you greatly. Today is the third of July.

Your Lordship’s unworthy servant and subject,

In her case, she convinced herself that her desire for prayer was a lack of humility. It seemed obviously presumptuous to dare to approach God in prayer after having sinned. This kind of self-judgment is very dangerous. About this danger she says in her autobiography:

In this the devil turned his batteries against me, and I suffered so much because I thought it showed but little humility if I persevered in prayer when I was so wicked, that, as I have already said, I gave it up for a year and a half—at least for a year, but I do not remember distinctly the other six months. This could not have been, neither was it, anything else but to throw myself down into hell; there was no need of any devils to drag me thither. O my God, was there ever blindness so great as this? How well Satan prepares his measures for his purpose when he pursues us in this way! The traitor knows that he has already lost that soul which perseveres in prayer, and that every fall which he can bring about helps it, by the goodness of God, to make greater progress in His service. Satan has some interest in this.

Beyond this tormenting lack of trust that masquerades as humility, she also reveals a few more common reasons for abandonment of prayer. The first is the devil’s desire to convince us to break this holy commitment. The enemy’s work can bring us to question our right to be in the presence of God and cause us to question whether our prayer is having any effect or is just a waste of time. Regardless of the temptation, Teresa is very strong in her admonition against any gap in our daily commitment to prayer. She comes to see her own choice not to pray as a decision to throw herself “down into hell.”

Her letter also suggests that even our grace-filled but fallen nature is a source of temptation against the practice of prayer. Though divine life is beginning to unfold in us, Teresa knows that as yet unhealed inclinations and broken impetuses often incline us away from prayer. This is because the Holy Spirit is doing something new, unfamiliar, above what is merely natural. Thus, this movement of the Spirit is specifically supernatural. Our broken sense of self-preservation resists this supernatural work of grace. It is not comfortable to be vulnerable to the immensity of God’s goodness. Our need for control and security clashes against the Father’s desire to draw us into the orbit of His love and holiness. Yet, whether the source of resistance to prayer is merely human frailty or diabolical craftiness, the answer is always the same: persevere, persevere, persevere.