St. Teresa of Avila and My Creative Writing Assignment

Because I don't have much to write today, mainly because I'm on a time crunch due to a professor pushing up the due date from next Monday to tonight, I am sharing a homework assignment. Luckily, it is something Catholic related because, as I said, my goal this Lent was to focus on Catholic literature.

For my Creative Writing class, we had to take a poem, song, short story, play, etc. and change its genre; the theme for this week was genres. I took the opportunity to infuse my faith with my assignment. Yes, I am shameless but I don't care. lol. Anyway, I am sharing what I wrote, and it's word for word what I submitted.

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I took an excerpt from the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila (Catholic nun and writer), which can be considered as a non-fictional autobiography. I turned it into a fictionalized drama.

Original:

“I went to great extremes in my vain anxiety about this, though I took not the slightest trouble about what I must do to live a truly honourable life. All that I was seriously concerned about was that I should not be lost altogether. My father and sister were very sorry about this friendship of mine and often reproved me for it. But, as they could not prevent my friend from coming over to the house, their efforts were of no avail, for when it came to doing anything wrong I was very clever. I am sometimes astonished at the harm which can be caused by bad company; if I had not experienced it I could not believe it. This is especially so when one is young, for it is then that the evil done is greatest. I wish parents would be warned by me and consider this very carefully. The result of my intercourse with this woman was to change me so much that I lost nearly all my soul‘s natural inclination to virtue, and was greatly influenced by her, and by another person who indulged in the same pastimes.” (The Life of Teresa of Jesus by Teresa of Avila)

My Version:

“I went to great extremes in my vain anxiety about this, though I took not the slightest trouble about what I must do to live a truly honorable life,” she explained to me as she took the seat next to mine.

There was a sadness in her eyes that had not faded over the years. I did not say anything, for fear of being disrespectful. I mean, how many times do you get to talk to a real life saint? Instead I kept listening.

“All that I was seriously concerned about was that I should not be lost altogether.“ She looked intently at me to see if I was still listening to her. I nodded, encouraging her to go on.

“My father and sister were very sorry about this friendship of mine and often reproved me for it. But, as they could not prevent my friend from coming over to the house, their efforts were of no avail, for when it came to doing anything wrong I was very clever.”

As she took a break to drink from the glass of water I had placed in front of her, my mind wandered off to a distant memory. Did she know that I had had a similar experience? Was this a lesson God was teach me through St. Teresa?

“I am sometimes astonished at the harm which can be caused by bad company; if I had not experienced it I could not believe it,” she continued as I snapped out of my own thoughts.

“This is especially so when one is young, for it is then that the evil done is greatest. I wish parents would be warned by me and consider this very carefully. The result of my intercourse with this woman was to change me so much that I lost nearly all my soul‘s natural inclination to virtue, and was greatly influenced by her, and by another person who indulged in the same pastimes.”

“Is that what’s happening to me?” I asked more afraid of the answer than anything else at that moment. “The friendship I have are keeping me from being good?”

She did not answer me. The classical music station that was set to turn on when my alarm went off did just that.

My eyes flew open, taking in the bright sunlight that was flooding into my room. It had just been a dream, though it was more real and relative than anything I could ever imagine myself.
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And there you have it. The professor said she wasn't going to criticize what we wrote so... yeah. If she does, I don't care. I will not back down from my beliefs... or my want of sharing those beliefs. Hey, when I say I'm sticking to something (like no Twitter - ugh, so hard!) then I do it. :D

Anyway, I am off to take a break (I've been sitting at the kitchen table for hours now) before I have to focus on my other classes.

Oh, by the way, I finished in time to go see Fr. Stan Fortuna perform at Catholic Underground but, unfortunately, my Humanities professor thought it would be fun to make us miss our Saturday night plans by making us attend an online class discussion. I will have to talk to him about that, and about how it's unfair that I could lose points on Saturday evenings/nights because he decides to hold "class discussions" on these days. I am NOT missing Sr. Tracey Dugas (and the rest of the Daughters of St. Paul)'s Discernment 101 session (second session) next Saturday because of this. I have Masses and important things to do than to sit home and discuss what I've already done and understood that week. /semi-rant. lol.

Okay, now I'm off to take a tea and cookies break before my online meeting in half an hour. :D

As always, thanks for reading and God Bless!



P.S./Edit: nevermind, the discussions on Saturdays are optional for extra credit. Great... I find this out too late. Oh well. :(