During her lifetime, St. Teresa was sometimes offered what she called “an income” to support some of the monasteries she founded. This income would have guaranteed a lifetime of financial security with all the needs of the nuns provided. But the Saint adamantly refused to accept these conditions. She fought hard for what she called “the poverty of the Order,” as revealed to her by God. As she recorded in her autobiography, “I found so many disadvantages in having an income and saw how it would be so great a cause of disquiet and even distraction that I did nothing else but dispute with learned men (Life 35:2–4)."
St. Teresa stood alone in her conviction against the many theologians and laity who were helping her, writing that though sometimes they almost convinced her, “when I returned to prayer and contemplating Christ on the cross so poor and so naked, I couldn’t patiently accept the idea of being rich. I tearfully begged Him to ordain things so that I would see myself poor, as He was (Life 35:3).
Saint Peter of Alcantara, a Franciscan friar who was a contemporary and a good friend of St. Teresa, was the only person who encouraged her to insist on dependence on alms as a way of observing poverty. This great Saint, who had died, appeared to St. Teresa, “looked severe and told me that I should by no means accept an income (Life 36:21)."
However, as was usual for St. Teresa of Avila, it was our Lord Himself Who spoke to her on this subject in locutions: “One day while praying intensely to God about this matter, the Lord told me I shouldn’t in any way fail to found the monastery in poverty, that this was both the will of His Father and His own …. Another time He told me an income would cause disturbance of mind, and added other things in favor of poverty, assuring me that whoever would observe it would not lack the necessities of life.…” Life 35:6.
Gradually St. Teresa, with the help of God, convinced everyone that dependence on alms was the way to go. Dependence on alms has many spiritual advantages. Those mentioned above are foremost: freedom from the distractions and disturbances of worldly possessions. But there is another, greater advantage, which is a direct result of the observance of the evangelical vow of poverty: the healing of the soul from fear by the practice of dependence on God’s providence, and the deeper intimacy with God that comes with greater dependence and openness about our daily problems, needs and fears.
Another advantage of the practice of dependence on alms is the effect on the surrounding community. A religious community that depends on alms remains in deep communion with the faithful who come to assist or to ask for prayers. It truly becomes a prayer engine of the Church, with the small donations of the poor providing the daily bread of their sisters in Christ. God rewarded St. Teresa for her fidelity in the practice of poverty as He had asked. This glorious Saint did not lack the help she needed. During the initial stages of her first foundation of reformed Carmelites, she, being a professed nun, had no money or the means to raise it. She wrote in her autobiography: “Once when in need, for I didn’t know what to do or how to pay some workmen, St. Joseph, my true father and lord, appeared to me and revealed to me that I would not be lacking, that I should hire them. And so I did, without so much as a penny, and the Lord in ways that amazed those who heard about it provided for me.”
Our Lord Himself spoke to her about the matter of moving into a house that seemed to her too small: “Oh covetousness of the human race, that you think you will be lacking! How many times did I sleep in the open because I had nowhere to lay My Head!” St. Teresa immediately went to the small house and saw that it was perfect for a monastery: “I arranged to have it fixed up so that it could be lived in – with everything left rough and unpolished – and likewise so that it would not be harmful to health. And this is the way these things should be done always (Life 33:1)"
St. Clare also appeared to her one day after Communion, encouraging her to continue and promising to help her. As Holy Mother wrote, “…little by little she brought this desire of mine to such perfection that the poverty this blessed saint practiced in her house is practiced in this one, and we are living on alms. For it had cost me no small amount of trouble that this observance of poverty would have all the backing and authority of the Holy Father behind it so that no one could change it and that there never be any income…and it must be perhaps through the prayers of this blessed Saint, for without any request His Majesty fully provides what is necessary for us (Life 33:13)."