John of the Cross, Man and Mystic,  by Richard P. Hardy, an engaging biography of a major  saint whose life and writings greatly enlighten and who set forth the standards of both Christian discernment and the Catholic way of life, especially valuable as an introduction to his life, with a guide to further reading. CLICK HERE

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MAJOR SAINT WARNED ON HOW SUBCONSCIOUS AND DEVIL CREATE FALSE LOCUTIONS AND VISIONS

When it comes to locutionists and apparitions (or when we ourselves seem to "hear" something), how do we tell the legitimate ones?

On this point, the great Teresa of Avila -- a doctor of the Church, as well as a major mystic -- gives us powerful advice that we should take to heart (and ear). A few pointers from her experiences:

When St. Teresa heard something that was truly from God, said this saint, she remembered it forever; it was indelible. It blazed itself in her memory. And while it was occurring she couldn't divert attention from it if she wanted (as she could when it was just her own mind or subconscious "understanding" talking).

A real revelation isn't just a series of words streaming to mind. Many times, warned St. Teresa, we imagine things. We think up "locutions." When the brain talks to itself, energy has to be spent by the one "hearing" it. With a Divine locution, on the other hand, said St. Teresa, there is no such feeling  of strain or forcing it -- of it originating in one's own thought pattern. It "costs me no labor," was the way she put it in her autobiography (The Life of Teresa of Avila). When we strive too hard, she warned, the devil is only too eager to comply with locutions or visions.

"The Lord impresses His words upon the memory so that it is impossible to forget them, whereas words that come from our own understanding are like the first movements of thought, which passes and is forgotten," is the way she put it. "The Divine words resemble something of which with the lapse of time a part may be forgotten but not so completely that one loses the memory of its having been said.

"A further indication, which is surer than any other, is that these false locutions effect nothing, whereas, when the Lord speaks, the words are accompanied by effects, and although the words may be, not of devotion, but rather of reproof, they prepare the soul and make it ready and move it to affection -- give it light and make it happy and tranquil."

It is "very wrong," said Teresa of Avila, for a person to "pretend to have received this favor," or to say  he has understood something he has not. Divine locutions do not come on command.

"I may listen for many days, and, although I may desire to hear them, I shall be unable to do so; and then, at other times, when I have no desire to hear them, I am compelled to," she said. "It seems to me that anyone who wishes to deceive people by saying that he has heard from God what comes from himself might equally well say he heard it with his bodily ears."

"When a locution comes from the devil," she said, the soul "suffers a disquiet" and is left in a state of "great aridity." When something is supernatural and from God, the words "are understood much more clearly than if they were so heard, and, however determined one's resistance, it is impossible to fail to hear them."

"If it is something invented by the understanding, subtle as the invention may be, he realizes that it is the understanding which is making up a speech or as if he were listening to what someone else was saying to him," wrote this saint. 

"The understanding will realize that it is not listening, but being active; and the words it is inventing are fantastic and indistinct and have not the clarity of true locutions."

Most suspect, she said, are those who have false humility and lack a gentleness of spirit. Damage, she warned, can be caused "by slow degrees."

The devil "can play many tricks," said St. Teresa, "and so there is nothing so certain as that we must always preserve our misgivings." The fruit of falsity is fear, confusion, and division.

No one has a corner of the truth. And few things are as difficult as discernment.

When there is pride, there is a blind side. Many deceive, first themselves.

The good news? "I consider it quite certain," added St. Teresa, "that the devil will not deceive -- and that God will not permit him to deceive -- a soul which has no trust whatever in itself, and is strengthened in faith."

[resources: Seven Days with Mary]

[San Francisco retreat: 'secrets', spiritual healing: February 27; St. Augustine, Fl. retreat, March 6; and St. Louis March 27]

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