“But the great Gardener is our Helper; or, to use the image of St. Teresa, He leads the water of His grace along different brooks and canals to the garden of our heart and sends down His abundant rain at the right time, thus taking out of our hands the work of watering. St. Teresa illustrates this by the ancient, medieval treatise on ‘Spiritual Chess’. She says we should play a spiritual chess game with the Beloved of our heart and that we should checkmate Him. And she adds that He cannot escape our moves and moreover would not even wish to escape. By this she gives us to understand that although we must do our best by playing well, the whole play is so calculated that at last the king is checkmated. The more play the queen, that is, our Modesty, has, the sooner will the king be captured.
Consequently, the mysticism of Teresa, no matter how sublime in the description of the sweet intercourse with God, is on the other hand real and practical.”
St. Titus Brandsma
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