The Seven Mansions: Saint Teresa of Ávila's Interior Castle

The summit of Catholic mystical writing, arranged as a guided journey through the seven dwelling places.

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About this edition

In 1577, in obedience to her confessor, Saint Teresa of Ávila set down the vision that became the summit of Catholic mystical writing: the soul is an interior castle of clear crystal, and within it are seven dwelling places, seven mansions, through which the Lord draws the soul ever inward, from the first stirrings of prayer to the spiritual marriage at the centre, where He Himself abides.

The Seven Mansions is not a public-domain reprint. It takes Teresa's complete text and arranges it as a guided devotional journey through the seven dwelling places. Her own sixteenth-century Spanish stands beside a faithful English rendering, so the reader may pray in either tongue, or in both at once. At the threshold of each of the seven mansions is an opening prayer drawn from Teresa's own poems, carrying the reader across from one dwelling place to the next.

For every soul who has meant to read the Interior Castle and found the old editions forbidding, this is a way in: Teresa's voice, unabridged, set as a retreat you can actually make, from the first mansion of self-knowledge to the seventh, where the King is waiting.

Inside

• Teresa's complete Interior Castle, English and the Spanish original, side by side
• An opening prayer at the threshold of each of the seven mansions, from her own poems
• The life of the saint and a note on the text and its 1911 Stanbrook translation
• A gallery of public-domain portraits of Teresa across four centuries
• A free companion app with the same guided seven-mansion journey

All doctrinal content follows the constant teaching of the Church.

Details

• Saint Teresa of Ávila, edited by Jessica Huber
• Translated by the Benedictines of Stanbrook Abbey (1911), edition prepared by the Very Rev. Fr. Benedict Zimmerman, O.C.D.
• English with the complete Spanish original
• Sanctified Souls, The Devotional Series
• Paperback and hardcover, 6 × 9, 276 pages, printed in full color

Orders are placed and shipped through IngramSpark. This page is a catalogue listing.