This prayer combines the official collect for the feast of Saint Teresa of Avila with her famous personal bookmark prayer. It asks God for the grace to be nourished by her spiritual teachings on the way to perfection and to be filled with a desire for true holiness, rooted in God's unchanging sufficiency.
The first part of this prayer is the Collect from the Roman Missal for the Memorial of Saint Teresa of Jesus on October 15. The second part, beginning “Let nothing disturb you,” is a short poem known as St. Teresa's Bookmark, found in her personal breviary after her death in 1582. A Spanish Carmelite nun, mystic, and reformer, she was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1970 for the depth of her spiritual writings.
The prayer petitions God to make St. Teresa's wisdom a source of spiritual nourishment for us. Her “way of perfection” is a path of interior prayer and union with God. The inclusion of her bookmark prayer emphasizes the foundation of this journey: radical trust and detachment. It affirms that while all earthly things are transient, God is constant and all-sufficient for the soul that possesses Him. This expresses a core tenet of Carmelite spirituality.
This prayer is especially fitting on St. Teresa's feast day, October 15th. It is also powerful when seeking guidance in one's prayer life, beginning a period of spiritual reading, or discerning a vocation. The second half, “Let nothing disturb you,” makes it an excellent prayer for moments of anxiety, uncertainty, or turmoil, reminding the soul to find its rest and security in God alone.
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