Teresa of Avila's Seven Mansions – Prayer
This past summer I got to know Tom Ashbrook, one of the founders of an evangelical monastic order called Imago Christi, a ministry of spiritual formation within Church Resource Ministries http://www.imagochristi.org/default.aspx. He later gave me a copy of his doctoral dissertation on Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle and I was deeply impacted. I reread the Interior Castle as a result and found his work immensely helpful in my own prayer journey as well as our work in helping others to pray. Most evangelicals, he argues (rightly in my opinion), do not get beyond the 3rd mansion to the 4th and beyond. There are seven mansions.  He writes: “As the believer enters the 4th Mansion, there develops a divinely bestowed absorption in knowing, loving, and seeking God. God has now enflamed the heart. The motivates are driven by love rather than by obligation, personal gain, blessing others, or even doing the right thing The beloved has heard the. Read more.