Original subtitles

In 1478 the Catholic Monarchs established the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition.

It would only be abolished in 1834.

1515 saw the birth of Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda Dávila y Ahumada,

known as Teresa of Jesús or Teresa of Ávila.

The first convent that she established was the Convent of Saint Joseph.

You never have doubts, Teresa?

I am yours, born for you. What do you command of me?

Doña Guiomar, we are alone. Nobody will defend us.

SHHHHH!

"God walks among cooking pots".

Curious phrase. Yours apparently:

"God walks among cooking pots".

So here we are.

Among cooking pots.

And it is about God.

Do you know who I am?

I know.

Then you know too why I am here.

No, I don't know.

Teresa, we have never met.

But I know you.

I have walked your path.

I know how this house came into being.

Twenty-seven years ago, you took your vows.

Most of that time, your order loved you.

No-one suspected you would become a cause of controversy.

Some time ago,

defying your Mother Superior,

your confessor, and the provincial prelate,

you inveigled other sisters

into establishing this house, which you call the Convent of San José.

What you have done brings division to your sisters and your order,

and scandal to the city.

I have learned enough to have this house dissolved.

But that is not what I want.

Answer me one thing.

Who taught you to lie, Teresa?

No-one.

I know your thought is twisted

and that makes you suffer.

I want you to be able to free yourself of this burden.

Tell me about yourself, Teresa.

Who is Teresa?

Nobody.

Too much humility, Teresa.

We both know that's not your way.

Tell me

who you are, Teresa.

That is, if you know who you are.

I want to hear it from your very own lips.

And if they refuse?

So my trial has begun?

They are just words, but you may find some defence in them.

I need no defence.

This house was created because it was the will of the Lord

and it will only be dissolved if he wills it.

As for my path,

it has been long and difficult.

I doubt you could feign such innocence

or pretend not to know who I am.

Or is it ignorance perhaps of who you are?

Do I know you better than you do yourself?

My life has been devoted to the works of the soul.

Beyond that, I see nothing there worthy of remembrance.

Teresa, you have been accused.

Speak

and I will tell you whether it should be forgotten.

- The day I took my vows... - You had no parents?

Through the father, we understand the child.

Teresa.

Teresa.

I saw only virtue in my parents.

They were the first good the Lord gave me.

They said you sleep alone,

so I've come to sleep with you.

In the sea there is a tower.

In the tower, a window.

At the window, a child,

calling to the sailors.

Your father was a great reader.

I've seen his library.

I've opened his books.

Did you ever find in any of them a single dubious thought?

My father was a man of compassion towards the poor, towards servants.

He never had slaves.

He never swore or complained.

Teresa.

"And in the middle of the road stood Urganda the Unknown.

A wise woman, with powers and spells".

Urganda the Unknown.

You think such tales of knights are good? And true?

My mother brought them home.

She liked to read too to distract herself from housework..

Books absorbed us and every new book brought us happiness.

"Mary Magdalene,

in the darkness of the cave,

was carried by angels high above the clouds...".

Brought us happiness... You and who else, Teresa?

Your brother, who read so much, did the books you were given

include the Spiritual Alphabet?

Beloved of converts from Judaism.

I found it in your father's house.

Tell me, Teresa.

Then or later, did you read any of these books?

Some.

Others I can't promise I didn't open, if they were at hand.

If you read, you will guide yourself.

Those who read to you bring you guidance.

In books I have found the solace I do not find in people.

I always wish for a book and time to read it,

and I fear going to prayers without a book.

A book is the shield against the blows of thought.

Without a book, my soul is thrown into confusion

and my thoughts are scattered.

The book orders them, raises them up.

The Lord has promised me,

"I will give you a living book".

He reads with me.

The devil reads too, and no less in company.

Never with me.

I remember, Teresa.

I remember everyone who has been accused, each one.

Juan Sánchez, for example, accused of heresy and apostasy.

A converted Jew.

Condemned for seven Fridays to wear the penitent's scapular.

They still remember him on the streets of Toledo,

with his yellow hood.

Jew!

From Toledo he went to Avila,

where he bought a knighthood and changed his name.

Dropped his father's name and took his mother's maiden name.

She was an old Christian.

I never knew him, my grandfather.

The plague took him in 1507.

Jewish dog!

They say he died as he lived, a good Christian.

And you?

Those who remember you as a girl say you liked fine things and oils,

and enjoyed company.

Oh beauty excelling all other beauty!

Giving pain with no wound,

and without pain, remaking the love of all creatures.

Oh knot that binds two such unequal things,

why do you ever untie,

for when bound you bind together every good in the face of evil.

You bind whoever is without being to infinite being.

Finish without finishing.

Love without having to love.

Magnify our nothingness.

You speak to your God with such emboldened words?

Only a small god would attend to such small words.

Why don't you tell me what you want, once and for all?

"Oh, living flame of love,

who softly wounds the deepest core of my soul...".

Your friend wrote that.

I am in no hurry.

I want this house closed. By you.

I want you to gather your followers

and beg their forgiveness for leading them on such a misguided adventure,

and accompany them to the doors of your former convent

where you will be met with mercy.

If you do not close this disobedient house, I will do so.

And this very night you will face justice.

You will not be alone in the punishment.

You will be accompanied by Guiomar de Ulloa, Antonia de Henar,

Antonia del Espíritu Santo, María de la Paz,

María de Ávila, Úrsula de los Santos,

Inés de Jesús and Ana de la Encarnación,

your accomplices of 24 August.

And Gaspar Daza, who dared to provide the habits.

The dissolution of this house.

That is what I require.

But it is not all that I require.

I have a far more important task.

To save your soul. Or burn it.

Before dawn you will learn

that you are walking a path guided by phantoms.

You will learn that it is not God who guides you,

but an infirm imagination.

This is what you will confess

to me, to your sisters and to yourself.

Otherwise, you and they...

will be burned at dawn.

Teresa, let me walk with you.

Together we will probe what cast you into prisons

from which, again and again, you claim, the Lord released you.

Come, Teresa.

I permit you to speak not to know you,

but for you to know yourself.

Soul, you must seek yourself in me

and you must seek for me in you.

For if you will reach out to me

you need but my name to say,

and I will attend without delay.

You must seek for me in you.

And in such purity,

did you never desire any man to sin against God for you?

Not even a certain priest who defiled his sacred vows?

He did not defile them with me.

You know who I mean.

He was fond of me.

Not in a bad way,

but in its excess it became... no longer good,

and should have been more tempered.

He deceived himself and deceived me.

He did not set out

but simply knew no better.

There was occasion for grave offence had not God stood before me.

In the dark night you are a yes.

You have to descend to the kingdom of roots.

Under the bluish bristling horn of stars

you feel yourself throb in a single beat.

I started talking to him because I thought he was a learned man.

No learned man had ever deceived me,

but I soon realised better no learning than just a little.

Before this happened, everything was as it should be.

Only dreams can see the future...

I wanted to distance myself, but he insisted.

Try.

Try.

I thought it a virtue to respect someone who respected me.

That does not excuse you before God.

Learned or not,

it was public knowledge that man celebrated mass in sin.

His shame was known to all,

and you should have stayed aloof from such an impure companion.

We owe the sinner nothing except our intransigence.

Double intransigence if his sin brings shame to the Church.

There is no greater evil than the evil of a priest.

To cleanse the world we must begin by cleansing the Church.

I thought it was my duty.

If that man had any remnant of spirit left,

I should do what I could to save him.

Not even for a greater good should wrong be done,

or even be contemplated.

I brought him what light I could.

Do you believe in idols and their spells?

That material things have power over the spiritual?

I'm not saying that spells bewitch.

But I saw what I saw

and I speak of it when I can, to men and women alike.

Women because, more than men,

they are obliged to honesty.

Men, so that they flee from women who seek such dealings.

How do you know so much about men and women, Teresa?

Did you ever force your will for any man to possess yours?

Never.

But only because the Lord keeps me intact.

If he abandoned me,

I'd fall into the same wrongs as others.

I was very wise about such wrongs.

And to avoid such company,

my father sent me to school with the Augustinians.

There was an old nun there

that the Lord used to bring me to the light.

You mean that it was the tears of an old nun

that brought you back to the Lord?

In those tears I saw that being a nun was the happiest state.

Why did you not ask your father to have you married?

Or did you fear marriage more than the convent?

Many choose the habit less out of friendship with God

and more out of friendship with other women,

to avoid husbands, pregnancies, and giving birth.

I never wanted to marry, that's the truth.

Did your choice of your former Convent have anything to do

with a friend called Juana Juárez?

I did not enter the Encarnación to follow Juana,

nor anyone else.

So, we still do not understand what guided your will.

My will was guided by the Lord

by an illness that forced me to return to my father's house.

My brother was there too,

and asked me to read him spiritual books.

"Beloved, look away, I'm going to fly".

With the strength the words gave to my heart,

I understood again the truth of when I was a child.

That all is nothing

and the vanity of the world

and to fear if death should come how it might find me.

From this I deduce that it was fear rather than love

that moved you to become a nun.

It was love.

It was against love.

Against my father's wishes, I went back to the convent.

I crept from my home at dawn, so that my father wouldn't know.

The devil said to me, on my way to the convent,

"Go home, Teresa."

You could never bear the rigours of religion,

"because you are spoilt".

So you also speak to the devil.

It was the Lord who responded through my mouth.

He swept away the tangle of my confusion.

"In contradiction lies the gain",

he whispered into my ear.

I resolved to suffer for him and the devil fled.

I won't be afraid of you any more!

You should be afraid of me!

I fear those who do not fear the devil!

I do too.

As a novice I anguished

about guilt without being guilty.

I confused virtue with sin,

and sin with virtue.

The convent didn't help me to tell them apart.

And prayer?

Prayer didn't help either?

You took little rest considering how ill you were.

Or were you not quite so ill?

Two of those who treated you doubted you were ill at all.

My illness was such that

my body fears the soul will always remember.

So many healers my father brought to me,

they all said I was beyond hope.

My heart's illness becomes more severe.

Sharp teeth bite so hard into it that I fear it is rabies.

My throat cannot swallow, not even water,

I have no strength,

exhausted because they purge me every day,

filled with despair.

My nerves contracted in such agony that even sleep brings no respite,

I curl into a ball

unable to move, like I was dead.

My tongue in pieces.

My tongue is bitten into pieces.

Teresa.

Teresa, calm down.

I hear my father's grief because he did not let me confess.

The grave open, ready for my body.

If it wasn't for my father, they'd have buried me alive.

Teresa...

There are many in the world for whom solitude is the outcome of pain

and who do not have the solace you received from your sisters.

They carried you in a sheet.

Others cannot find even hands to carry them.

- That house did not feel like yours? - I wanted it to be.

I soon realised it could not be,

and the Lord made me realise that he knew the same.

That house is not founded on perfection.

It is not a closed house.

The nuns come and go.

They come to the Encarnación to escape from one world

and enter a thousand worlds there.

You show little love for the Encarnación.

Though you received love and care there.

You had no right to disobey the Rule.

I would have paid dearly for living in an open convent.

Few understand that to be cloistered is to be free.

One day, when I was with a certain person,

I saw a lame toad

walking more lightly than normal,

a sort more usually seen at night.

That is how the Lord warned me against that friendship,

although at first I resisted his warning.

Until, once again, when I was in the same company,

the Lord appeared before me

and made his displeasure known at seeing me with that person.

I resolved never to see them again.

So the Lord not only talks to you,

but has also appeared to you.

Was that the first time he appeared?

The first time was one night

he showed me just his hands.

The following night he showed his face.

He appeared little by little.

Why not all of him at once?

He was acknowledging my weakness,

because so much glory I couldn't have borne at once.

I don't understand why a body of such beauty causes such reticence.

Of such beauty

that it inspires fear,

although I would not change it for all the world's delights.

What do you do when you see him?

In the beginning, I did nothing but cry

until he spoke a single word to me, and I was no longer afraid.

Now I don't need a word not to be afraid.

How do you know it's Christ?

I don't know how I know,

but I cannot stop knowing it.

We have time, Teresa.

I don't understand. Help me to understand what it's like.

This type of vision

is beyond compare.

It is everything.

It is nothing.

It is a gentle fire.

I know that he is there.

It's like...

being blind or in the dark,

you can't see someone beside you, but you can feel them?

It's something like that, but not really.

I can't hear him move, I can't touch him.

There's nothing there but...

a calling to the soul.

And when the moment has gone, I doubt...

I doubt whether it actually happened.

Your appointed confessor, what does he say about all this?

My confessor is afraid to hear my confession.

He told me, when the Lord appeared before me,

to show him the cross,

because if he is the devil this would drive him away.

Did you do as your confessor commanded?

I did, and wept.

When I showed him the cross, I begged his forgiveness.

He told me to obey my confessor,

but when my confessor forbad me to pray,

the Lord said that was tyranny,

and to show he was not a devil,

he took the cross in his own hand,

and when he gave it back

it was fashioned of stones so precious

that diamonds are poor things in comparison with the stones I saw.

I saw his five wounds too.

The crucified Christ appears to you?

You see his wounds?

His tortured skin? His blood?

That cross with stones more beautiful than diamonds,

what have you done with it?

The Lord took the cross with him.

If you are with other people at any of those times,

do they see what you see?

No-one sees him except me.

Sometimes the Lord also wanted me to see this vision:

I saw an angel nearby

to the left,

in carnal form,

such as I have never seen except in dreams.

Not large, he was small,

very beautiful.

In his hand a long golden spear,

with what seemed a spark of fire at the tip.

And...

he seemed to pierce my heart over and over

right into my entrails.

So that when he pulled it out,

it seemed as though he pulled them with it

and left me burning in the greatest love for God.

So terrible was the pain

that I moaned aloud,

and so great its sweetness

that I could never wish it to stop.

It was not a physical pain

but a spiritual one,

although somehow my body was part of it too.

It was the sweetest of caresses

between the soul and God,

that I pray to his goodness

that even those who think I lie might be granted the same joy.

"Imagination is the madwoman of the house".

A curious sentence of yours.

"Imagination is the madwoman of the house".

As a child you read books about knights and their adventures.

As a child you loved fantasy.

These visions are fantasy too.

Like so many charlatans that I unmasked before you,

you think no-one will dispute what you do

because what you do is commanded by God.

For this to be imagination is impossible beyond all impossibilities.

The sheer beauty of a hand is beyond our imagination,

nor could mere fantasy ever paint such light.

If no-one but you sees what you see

and you do not know how to explain what you see,

I say it is pretence,

and that your prayer is theatre,

and theatre the silence into which you fall after prayer.

Such forces from God, to those who do not know them,

are beyond understanding.

But when sometimes I have tried to explain,

I was insulted and abused.

People in whose view I am worth nothing,

because God does not lead them along this same path,

when they hear me, they say I lack humility,

that I am possessed

and they want to exorcise me.

And what if I say that too?

You lack humility and are possessed.

And it is the devil fooling you into believing you see the Lord.

Should I believe you if you tell me you are not here before me?

If it is not theatre or delusion,

then it is the devil.

Should I deny being in the presence of he who has placed jewels

in my hands as tokens of love,

making me rich when I was poor?

I can show these jewels,

because those who knew me before see that my soul is different.

"I am yours and you are mine", he said to me.

"Being loved, she is transformed into the one who loves her".

God has changed me so much I no longer know myself.

I have grown in my love for him.

Even asleep I am at prayer.

I have seen where I must stop,

and I seek his hand so I do not fall.

Because he has already shown me the chamber the devil has prepared

for me for my sins.

What are you talking about?

What devil's chamber?

I don't know if I can put in words what I saw.

One night,

while at prayer,

I found myself, without knowing how, in hell.

There is no pain like the dying of the soul.

You have been very honest, recounting this dark vision.

I will reciprocate by telling you something

that I have dared tell no-one else.

For seven years now,

every night, after prayer,

I hear voices calling me in tongues I do not understand.

And though I do not understand them, I obey them.

They command me to follow them through the woods

to a clearing where there is a chapel.

But when I enter this chapel,

there is no Holy Sacrament,

but a library of many books.

When I touch them I see they are not in alphabetical order,

but arranged from Good to Evil.

The first is the Bible.

The last one has black pages, burning but never consumed.

The voices that have guided me there push me towards this book,

and they all speak as one,

"Read and obey".

Words.

Words.

Everything you have heard is nothing but words.

I have mixed three dreams with a couple of fantasies

like mixing onions, with lentils and two pieces of pork fat.

And the next time I tell it, I'll be better prepared.

I'll consult books which depict the punishments of hell.

You know those books too.

What I have read is nothing to what I have lived,

nor does any image compare to the truth.

Whereof one cannot speak,

thereof one must be silent.

Words are not even a shadow of those things.

If our tongues spoke the truth about heaven or hell,

they would break into pieces.

We cannot speak of the only thing that matters.

Not in this language.

We want to reach the edge of language,

and leap

and speak from the other side.

But on the other side,

for us, Teresa, there is only silence.

Only silence.

Silence.

Do you not know silence?

When have you remained silent, Teresa?

When have you chosen to stay quiet?

Now you open this house and you upset your sisters.

They think poorly of you. They say you offend them.

They see now that you have never loved them.

The very least they ask is you be cast into the convent prison.

They ask me "Does she think she's better than the rest of us who live here,

or does she do it for fame?".

The ones who want me in prison, they do not know me.

I am envious of people who live in deserts.

Those who say I want fame,

they condemn me without blemish.

Although they are right in that other way.

That I am more contemptible than many,

and that it is not true I would know how to live in a stricter house.

And that you scandalise everyone!

Trouble ye not, let nothing you dismay.

Possessing God, nothing you lack.

Have you not heard the rising voices

of a city that speaks of nothing else?

I have been waiting years for this moment.

I came here convinced you must be punished.

Nothing I have heard turns me from that purpose.

On the contrary, I am even more persuaded.

I know who you are, Teresa, and which lord you serve.

I know, like you know,

how evil can reshape those souls

whose own soul needs so much reform.

I know, like you know, you took your vows

not out of love for God.

After listening to you,

I know that this house cannot be tolerated,

nor can your spirit be allowed to infect others.

After hearing you,

my only doubt is whether to knock down this house, or burn it,

whether to grant you exile or death.

You exert so much force against a few poor women.

If a few women cause harm, it is done to ourselves,

not to the city, or to the world.

I have been praying for three days, waiting for what has to happen.

On hearing you had reached the city,

I said to the Lord,

"This house is not ours, it was built for you",

and I asked my sisters to pray.

With their prayers they will do more than my intercessions can.

For years, I have been waiting for this moment.

When I saw you, I felt...

vexation.

Then I suddenly realised you could understand me.

I know you are a soul with the gift of God to know other souls.

You are like me.

Although the provincial prelate does not want to turn against us,

he doesn't dare either to give us permission to live in San José.

But you could.

I beg for me and for my sisters.

You could also punish us.

You can give us exile or death.

But what is done cannot be undone,

for he does not will it.

I can be merciful too.

If in all humility,

you will return to the Encarnación with words of repentance.

I do not wish you to turn against me,

but I will not be untruthful to have you by my side.

I will not cause pain where it can be avoided,

but I am not afraid to make enemies.

I do not seek to please everyone,

only him.

My only obligation is to him.

You confuse the will of the Lord

with your own vanity.

Or do you claim that the Lord commands you to disobey your Rule?

I claim the opposite.

Doña Guiomar was the first to desire the same thing.

We wished for a house with few nuns.

Twelve and the mother superior, cloistered.

Twelve?

No more no less, twelve.

Your arrogance is boundless.

As it is in naming this house San José, after the father of Christ.

The Lord commands it to be named that.

Those who help you, do you tell them what you see?

Perhaps you doubt whether your visions are true?

No.

Do you agree with those who believe prayer is possible

only in hardship?

The old rule stated:

"No brother shall have possessions, everything belongs to all,

and what the Lord provides is shared

according to the needs of each and every one".

Who has taught you, woman, so much about rules?

Another woman.

A war...

A war between the discalced and the calced.

Is that what you want to start?

A war in the Church? A war in the world?

In the Encarnación there are nuns who pay for a larger cell,

and servants and even slaves.

Convent, Church, world, they must be a house of equals.

Did no-one teach you, woman, to weigh your words

before putting them into your mouth?

Yours sound like a utopia, a republic of women, a madness.

Be warned that it is not only this house you condemn,

but also your life, and the lives of those who follow you.

We only wish for the Lord to offer us a way in which we may lose our lies.

Everything is gained in losing everything for him.

"Everything is gained in losing everything for him".

"I die because I do not die".

You love paradoxes, like all those who twist their words.

Your writings are full of them, and coded images.

"Diamond castle", "Seven mansions", "The madwoman of the house".

I am a hunter.

I was taught to tell the friend from the foe behind the words.

Your words,

which hide more than they say, will not confuse me.

They are dictated by the devil,

for they are beyond the measure of a woman.

No matter how little women do, it is judged beyond us.

And anything a woman does well brings her under suspicion.

"Women's nonsense", people are quick to say.

The world has us cornered, butterflies bound in chains.

But the Lord makes an illiterate girl

wiser than the most learned bishop.

Although we lack the freedom to shout,

we will not stop speaking our truths.

Even in a whisper.

Being cloistered means no-one from outside sees

and no-one from outside hears!

What words are said behind these walls?

What words are read?

I will not permit this small house

to give rise to a great schism.

I have learnt that subversion often masquerades as the mystical.

Disorder is often called the spiritual.

Often the spiritual is called disorder.

Open your cell for me.

In this house each cell is sacred, unique.

Open it.

Are all these your papers?

It has become custom among people of the Church

to hide writings in case they are taken for examination.

That is not my custom.

- Is this your writing? - You know it is.

"Silent prayer is to be alone in friendship with he who loves us".

A book about silent prayer. This is what you are writing?

Is this the guide for the new convent?

Is this the guide to your reform?

Speech is not enough for you. You love writing.

I will write for as long as my hand can hold a quill.

Bartolomé de Carranza preached silent prayer

and direct communication with God.

He insisted on translating the Bible into everyday speech

so that women could read it.

His trial was so notorious you must have heard of it.

Being Bishop of Toledo did not protect him.

Nor Agustín Cazalla, though he was confessor to the king.

Nor did they fear death, until they saw it close up.

If you,

along with those who are with you,

return now to the Encarnación,

I will ensure you are accepted

and what has happened will be forgotten.

What has happened must never be forgotten.

If he wills it,

I shall live here for the rest of my days.

It is my sole desire.

To be alone with him.

And if he commands it,

I shall go out and found more houses,

and I shall go out into the world.

And the world, when He commands me to go,

will seem small.

There will be burning sun and freezing ice on the way,

but he will walk with me.

That is the strength of this small woman.

"For then we see through a glass, darkly,"

but then face to face",

said St Paul.

"For then we see through a glass", that is, the wrong way round.

"But then face to face",

that is, the truth.

What shall we do meanwhile?

"For then we see through a glass, darkly,

but then face to face".

Maybe what is small is an image of what is great?

Or what is great is smaller in the mirror?

Maybe the abyss that we call world

is the abyss of our soul,

or our souls mirror other worlds?

Maybe our tongues are only pieces of a broken mirror

which reflects a tongue we have forgotten?

Do you never have doubts, Teresa?

I know you doubt.

Such sadness beneath that smile.

Such fear of life beneath this yearning for death.

Such fear of that body

that you seek to imprison and shroud.

Such fear of the world and of yourself

beneath your desire for a God who talks constantly to you.

My God is far away and silent,

but I swear I do not envy you.

Ask me who I am and I can tell you.

You do not know who you are, Teresa.

Nor do you need punishment, because you have never left hell.

I will ensure there is no other punishment for you.

As for this house,

I will see it isn't closed.

I know that, one by one,

the sisters with you today will soon depart.

They will leave you alone with your little God.

You will die alone.

If I have doubts, you say.

I doubt at every moment.

If I look at this house, I am happy to have made him happy.

But the devil follows on quickly to disturb this peace.

He laughs and says,

it has all been a trick to steal my soul.

Years of prayer are stolen by my enemy in a single breath.

Faith is suspended

and I am left without strength to defend myself from his blows,

and, in my soul, from the deepest darkness.

Such is this life of misery.

There is no happiness without mutability.

I will not change for anyone and suddenly

I no longer know not what to do with myself.

The only one who can save me is hidden from me.

Where are you?

I cry out.

Why have you left me alone?

Or was I always alone?

Who am I, if I was always alone?

Yes, I have doubts.

I doubt every moment.

But the angel of good always always conquers the angel of evil.

With the dart of fire that pierces my heart.

It is a breaking, a wound...

It is great pain,

but so sweet there is no pleasure that gives more joy.

The pain is so sharp it cuts the body.

And the tongue in pieces refuses to utter words.

It can only moan and whimper.

The tongue is in pieces

and it is only love that speaks.

But no-one can speak of this.

It is better...

to say nothing.