Review article
The Experience of Faith of Saint Teresa of Avila: Central Themes and Connections with the Neocatechumenal Way
Edvard Punda
orcid.org/0000-0003-1492-0660
; Central Seminary of Split, Split, Croatia
Abstract
Drawing on the experience of faith of Saint Teresa of Avila, the article discusses the importance and nature of faith as a lived reality. Showing how the central themes of Teresa’s experience of faith reflect today, among other things, in the Neocatechumenal Way, we are presented with the very nature and theology of the Way. In the first part we are presented with the most important details from the lives of Teresa of Avila and Kiko Arguello, the initiator of the Neocatechumenal Way. Although, at first glance, they lived completely different experiences, the lives of Teresa and Kiko are marked by many similarities: born into Christian families and raised in the faith, they both eventually taste the experience of deep kenosis in which they seek a full life; a cry out to God and God's answer which for both of them marks the beginning of what they will call a new life, marked by God's work and true conversion. The second part describes the central themes of faith lived and reflected, starting from and within the new experience: human life as the history of salvation; Jesus Christ as the source and center of the entire Christian existence; prayer as the most authentic expression of faith. As a kind of conclusion, we are shown in a few brief lines the place and meaning of the Church with regards to faith: to make one’s own the things that the Church teaches and lives is a kind of summary of faith of both Teresa and Kiko.
Keywords
faith; experience; Christianity; kerygma; prayer
Hrčak ID:
99625
URI
Publication date:
5.4.2013.
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