Vigils Reading

BEING PLACED INSIDE

GOD’S GRANDEUR

By St Teresa of Avila

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You must have already heard about God’s marvels manifested in the way

silk originates. The silkworms come from seeds about the size of little grains of

pepper… When the warm weather comes and the leaves begin to appear on the

mulberry tree, the seeds start to live, for they are dead until then. The worms

nourish themselves on the mulberry leaves until, having grown to full size, they

settle on some twigs. There with their little mouths they themselves go about

spinning the silk and making some very thick little cocoons in which they

enclose themselves. The silkworm, which is fat and ugly, then dies, and a little

white butterfly, which is very pretty, comes forth from the cocoon.

Now if this were not seen but recounted to us as having happened in other

times, who would believe it? Or what reasoning could make us conclude that a

thing as nonrational as a worm or bee could be so diligent in working for our

benefit and with so much industriousness? And the poor little worm loses its life

in the challenge. Well, once this silkworm is grown, it begins to spin the silk and

build the house wherein it will die. I would like to point out here that this house

is Christ.

Therefore, courage! Let’s be quick to do this work and weave this little

cocoon by taking away our self-love and self-will, our attachment to any earthly

thing, and by performing deeds of penance, prayer, mortification, obedience,

and of all the other things you know. Would to heaven that we would do what we

know we must; and we are instructed about what we must do. Let it die; let this

silkworm die, as it does in completing what it was created to do! And you will see

how we see God, as well as ourselves placed inside God’s grandeur, as is this

little silkworm within its cocoon.

Oh, now, to see the restlessness of this little butterfly, even though it has

never been quieter and calmer in its life, is something to praise God for! And the

difficulty is that it doesn’t know where to alight and rest. Since it has

experienced such wonderful rest, all that is sees on earth displaces it, especially

if God gives it this wine often. Almost each time it gains new treasures. It no

longer has any esteem for the works it did while a worm, which was to weave the

cocoon little by little; it now has wings. How can it be happy walking step by step

when it can fly?