Interior castle

The compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach completely miss
beauty, harmony and, essentially, clarity.
(Johann Adolph Scheibe, Der critische Musikus, 1737)

Today, on the feast of Saint John of the Cross we have completed the Hungarian translation of the Interior castle by Saint Teresa of Ávila, the greatest work of Christian mysticism, on which we have been working since this spring. A lot of splendid words have been written on the work and its author in the past four and half centuries. On this occasion let us recall one of the earliest opinions, told by the papal nuntius Felipe Sega when, on 29 August 1577, with a staff of fifty persons, secretaries, pages, stewards, cooks, barbers and coachmen he arrived to Madrid to abolish the reforms of the Carmelitan order on which Teresa had been working for all her life.

Fémina inquieta, andariega, desobediente y contumaz, que a título de devoción inventaba malas doctrinas, andando fuera de la clausura contra el órden del concilio tridentino y prelados, enseñando como maestra contra lo que San Pablo enseñó, mandando que las mujeres no enseñasen.

A troublesome, restless, disobedient, and stubborn female, who under the guise of devotion invented bad doctrines, running around outside the cloister against the order of the Tridentine Council and prelates, instructing like a teacher in defiance of what St. Paul taught, who ordered women not to teach.

Teresa is today considered one of the thirty-three Doctors of the Catholic church. And Sega is indebted to this quote for the fact that, besides some specialists, anyone knows he ever existed.