the mystical temple of god 622 Father of the Recollects,130 who for forty years gazed at neither man nor woman.131 Truly, those who are not ignorant of the fact that death enters the soul through the eyes, fasten a thousand bolts to them. You, certainly be watchful, lest some Isaiah132 laments of your Temple: “All its gates were destroyed” [Lamentations 1, 4]. CHAPTER 15 The Windows of the Mystical Temple They are ears. Why? As all things enter through doors, and only noise enters through windows from without, so words enter through the ears, not bodies. And yet with words a thing itself may penetrate, first seizing the imagination, then the other faculties with greatest ease, and may defile the altar itself. The most holy King of Jerusalem boasted that these windows of his temple were absolutely perfect when he sang: “Sacrifice and obligation you did not desire; but you made perfect ears for me” (Ps 40:7) [LV]. Of course those ears are perfect which are open only to devout, salutary, virtuous and beneficial discourses; they are barred against those that are vain, prying, slanderous, licentious, 130 St. Peter of Alcantara OFM Obs., (d. 1562). Clemens IX canonized him on April 28, 1669. Clemens X extended his cult to the whole church in the year 1670 (cf. Ghinato, Alberto, Peter of Alcantara, Saint, P.II: ECat IX, 1396). In truth, St. Peter of Alcantara can scarcely be called a “Father of the Recollects,” because he did not belong to the Recollects Minor, but originated the reform of the Franciscan order, which became known as the “Alcantaristi” (the Brothers of the Strictest Observance). 131 The author probably read of St. Peter of Alcantara’s remarkable penance in the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila; but the assertion: “for forty years he gazed at neither man nor woman” is not so clearly stated in this book, where one reads: “He told me that for forty years ... he had not slept longer than an hour and a half. From youth he practiced strict mortification, and told me that he never raised his eyes from the ground, to the point that, although he lived in the same house belonging to his Order for three years, he recognized his fellow religious only by their voices; For more years he never looked any woman in the face.” See: Life of St. Teresa of Jesus Written by Herself, Ch. 27, nn. 17-18, in: Teresa di Gesù, Works I, Milan, 1932, 298 pages. 132 This is generally attributed to Jeremiah, not Isaiah.
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