A Thorn in the Heart
The remarkable relic of St. Teresa's heart
"In [the angel's] hands I saw a long golden spear and at the end of the iron tip I seemed to see a point of fire. With this he seemed to pierce my heart several times so that it penetrated to my entrails. When he drew it out, I thought he was drawing them out with it and he left me completely afire with a great love for God." The Life
Thus does the great St. Teresa of Avila describe her famous mystical transverberation—the piercing of her heart. People unfamiliar with the life of Teresa and her writing may think this is just a florid bit of hokum from a neurotic, attention-seeking nun. Nothing could be further from the truth. Whatever the nature of her experience, this extremely intelligent, tough, sane, good-humored, humble, and, of course, holy woman was neither neurotic nor insane. Even a cursory examination of her letters shows a very grounded woman, albeit one prone to profound mystical experiences.
Armchair psychologists and renaissance artists have had a field day with the description of her most intimate self being repeatedly pierced with a shaft, and it would be foolish to deny the element of eros present in her account. This was a highly literate, well-read, well-bred, and, by all reports, extraordinarily beautiful woman. When she wrote the account, she knew what she was writing and how she was presenting it, and she wanted to capture the complete surrender of the experience in the most profound and intimate terms she could.
The nature of that experience left many curious about the actual state of Teresa’s heart. Did it bear any signs of the piercing?
It’s on display in the convent in Alba de Tormes. and has been examined for centuries, but largely forgotten is an obscure pamphlet by Fr. Nemesio Cardellac y Busquets, priest of the Congregation of the Mission: Sainte Thérèse de Jésus et les épines de son coeur qui est vénéré dans le couvent des Carmélites déchausées de Alba de Tormès (diocèse de Salamanque), 1876. Fr. Nemiso had the advantage of seeing examining it closely over a century and a half ago, and at a time when there was much controversy about the heart producing thornes.
A Relic Like None Other
Teresa died October 4th, 1582 in Alba de Tormes, and an autopsy was performed on October 5 in which evidence of a 5-centimetre wound on the heart was observed. A struggle over her remains, which were reportedly incorrupt and gave off the odor of sanctity, ensued, with her home town of Avila winning. In desperation, one of her sisters cut the heart from her body before it could be moved. Ecclesial authorities decided that the heart could remain in Alba de Tormes while the body returned to Avila, with other parts removed for veneration elsewhere.
She was beatified by Paul V in 1614, and canonized eight years later by Gregory XV. One hundred years after that, an investigation into her mystical experiences and mortal remains was begun, lasting from 1725 to 1732. Benedict XIII declared that the phenomena was supernatural and divine in origin.
Another century passed. And then, on March 19, 1836, the nuns of Alba de Tormes reported that thorns had appeared in heart, which was kept in a sealed reliquary. The authorities clamped down on information immediately, suspecting fraud and not wanting it to contaminate devotion to the saint or call the canonization into question, but information still reached the pope, and the bishop of Alba was asked to investigate.
Investigations dragged on for years, with proponents and critics each making their case for or against the genuineness of the thornes. Fr. Nemesio arrived at the monastery in 1873 for spiritual exercises, and soon learned of the controversy. He studied the reports and the relic carefully, and in April 1875, Bishop Narciso Martinez Izquierdo put him in charge of the inquiry.
His conclusion was the the thorns were of supernatural origin, and his book was soon published widely in many languages. Of particular interest were his detailed drawings of the heart from both sides, with identifying keys (shown below, with machine translations provided). The drawings soon became popular holy cards.
Fr. Nemisio describes the wound:
According to the Saint's story, the Seraphim was standing to her left; and, leaning behind her to her right, he thrust the dart into the front of his chest and a little on the right side.
The injury or transverberation is in the upper and widest part of the heart, in line horizontal from right to left: it has at least five centimeters long. It opens on the right side and a little behind; then, running in front, includes almost the entire width of the heart up to the left side.
It is in the most lateral part of the heart that the wound is the most open, and, consequently, the gap at this location are further apart than elsewhere. Towards the middle of the wound, we notice a break the upper lip, which means that at this point too it is a little more open.
Throughout the extent of the injury, we notice burn marks, but especially in the two ruptures mentioned of the upper lip which offer a appearance of burning or carbonization by the means of a hot coal or a red-hot iron.
…We see that the wound has gone through the substance and the ventricles of the heart, and that it was made with a very sharp and broad instrument. Any such injury is fatal: the great servant of God should have fallen dead on the spot, and yet she lived another twenty years!
His attention, however, was most attracted by the thorns, which appeared to multiply in the completely dry environment of the sealed glass reliquary:
The thorns appear to be real thorns: they are straight, smooth, of a similar composition, unique and without example…. We see fifteen rising from the dust, natural growths or outgrowths in the form of thorns, which live and develop, and maintain a dark and solid cinnamon color. Everything remains arid and dry, under the same pressure, and nevertheless the thorns have not only been preserved, but multiplied considerably; they become stronger, and grow in different directions.
Last summer, her body (in Avila) was exhumed and reportedly remains in some kind of incorrupt state. The church holds these reports fairly close to the vest for a long time, so we have not had the kind of detailed scientific follow-up we’d like. This why Fr. Nemisio’s extremely close observations remain useful even 150 years later, and even with his observations heavily laced with pious outbursts. He had a genuine desire to report what he saw.
The heart and the transverberation are not, in the end, the most import legacy of Teresa. She was a spiritual titan, and left the church with an incredible gift in her writings, which are all available in superb, affordable annotated editions from the Institute for Carmelite Studies, or via Verbum.
Here are two views of the heart with a detailed key to what the images show, along with a machine translation.
You have cured my blindness
with the blindfold that covered
Your divine eyes and my vanity
with that cruel crown of thorns!
St. Teresa, Soliloquy 3