Let Nothing Disturb Thee (St. Teresa’s Bookmark)

This is not a composed prayer so much as a note to herself. It was found written in St. Teresa's own hand on a small paper kept in her breviary, and for that reason it has been called ever since St. Teresa's Bookmark.

The Spanish is barely nine lines and rhymes: Nada te turbe, nada te espante, todo se pasa; Dios no se muda. La paciencia todo lo alcanza; quien a Dios tiene, nada le falta: sólo Dios basta. It is written in the second person singular, the form used to a child or to oneself — she is not instructing a community, she is steadying her own soul.

Teresa had reason to need steadying. She spent her last twenty years founding and governing reformed Carmels across Spain in poor health, under suspicion, and against opposition from within her own order. The line most often quoted — sólo Dios basta, God alone suffices — is not the serenity of someone with nothing to lose, but of someone who had methodically let go of everything else.

The prayer is given here in English. The original is Spanish, not Latin; the Church's greatest prayers are not all in her liturgical tongue, and this one was never meant for the choir at all.