The Sacred Balance of Memory and Love — The Interior Castle

Teresa insists that souls who receive the highest favors feel sorrow for sin increase, not decrease. Their grief is not mainly fear of punishment but ingratitude toward God, whose greatness the favors revealed; past follies seem madness and remain in memory like mire in a riverbed, making a heavy cross. Such souls forget self-interest, fear only offending God, and would endure Purgatory chiefly because it delays His presence.

Teresa fiercely defends meditation on Christ's sacred Humanity, Passion, Virgin, and saints against those who say advanced souls should rise above corporeal images. Christ is the Way, the Light, and without Him souls lose their Guide and cannot enter the last mansions. Contemplatives may find reasoned meditation difficult when will already seeks God, yet they can still gaze on mysteries imprinted in memory, especially during aridity when fire in the will needs fanning.

Souls must search for God when His presence is not felt, not stand idle waiting for miracles. Teresa warns beginners who taste quiet prayer not to abandon Passion meditation for constant absorption, a deception that injured her own progress until a director corrected her. Even the most spiritual must keep Christ's life before them; abandoning His Humanity opens the door to devilish confusion and weakens devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.