St. Teresa's Prayer?

May 15, 2005 9:08 AM

A friend of mine, who writes for Ministry and Liturgy magazine, has a question about a prayer attributed to St. Teresa.

Here's what she has to say:

"I'm wanting to include a reference to "St. Teresa's Prayer" in my next M&L article, but I can't find any information which shows the SOURCE -- i.e., what work of Teresa's it comes from. I've searched my brain, my books, and every online source in English and Spanish that I can find, and I'm coming up dry.

"The only way I know the English text is through the John Michael Talbot song:

'Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.'

"I found something in my search today which may or may not be the Spanish original of that English translation (it may be a re-Spanish-izing of the text of the song):

'Cristo ahora no tiene cuerpo en la tierra sino el de ustedes,
No tiene manos sino las de ustedes,
No tiene pies sino los de ustedes.
Los ojos de ustedes son los ojos a través de los cuales
la compasión de Cristo mira al mundo herido.
Los pies de ustedes son los pies con los que él va a hacer el bien.
Las manos de ustedes son las manos con las que él bendice ahora.'

"Does ANYBODY know where this comes from in Teresa's body of work? Or is it just some random piece that's only been ATTRIBUTED to Teresa over the years?

"A batch of homemade mint chocolate chip cookies to the first person who can tell me where it comes from!"

I'm told that the mint chocolate chip cookie offer can be extended to Ask MetaFilter denizens.

posted by UKnowForKids to Religion & Philosophy (4 answers total)

Unless your friend is doing an article on the prayer itself, I think its completely appropriate for her to say what she knows, the the quote is "attributed to St. Teresa" which is definitely true. I did some digging on my end and didn't find anything definitive. Further work trying to figure it out is likely going to involve a lot of sleuthing. Trying to source quotations is difficult work, but if your friend really wants to get at this, I'd recommend dropping a line to the Humanities folks at the Library of Congress and see if they have some better sources.
posted by jessamyn at 12:20 PM on May 15, 2005

laurencebrassilAThotmail.com , augustinian priest , he should know , tell him steve sent you ...my guess is "story of a soul"
here's a picture of her to cheer you up...



posted by sgt.serenity at 3:24 PM on May 15, 2005

UKnowForKids, I did some sleuthing myself (fascinating woman and life story), but I'm beginning to think that it's simply traditional, perhaps something passed down among the Carmelite nuns and over time finding its way into official Catholic prayer books. The book A Holy Longing, which is copiously footnoted (and some intelligent search inside maneuvers lets you read them), says in the note for the quotation of the prayer, A prayer attributed to St. Teresa of Avila. If that book couldn't turn it up, I'm not sure who could.
posted by dhartung at 1:05 AM on May 16, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks for the assistance, folks - I'll pass your comments along to Deanna.
posted by UKnowForKids at 10:29 AM on May 16, 2005