Today the Carmelite Order celebrates the Memorial of the Transverberation of the Heart of Saint Teresa of Jesus (Avila). See The Book of Her Life, Chapter 29, in which she describes the experience and a vision of an angel with a fiery dart, which has been represented in various famous pieces of art.
The transverberation, or spiritual piercing of the heart, is a personal grace of Pentecost and Mission that is typically received in the Sixth Mansions and the dark night of the spirit after many years of spiritual growth in faith, hope, and charity. St Teresa probably received it in 1559, at the age of 44. She died in 1582, and when her body was exhumed, there was very little decay, and her incorrupt physical heart had an actual physical puncture wound in it.
St Teresa and St John of the Cross taught that every baptized Christian is called to imitate the sacrificial life of Christ and to receive the stigmata spiritually, but it is an extraordinary grace to receive the stigmata physically, including the piercing of the heart.
The sacraments of the Church impart the indwelling of the Holy Spirt to all the faithful, and when a member of the faithful becomes sufficiently mature to sacrifice themselves unconditionally for the Mission of the Church, the spiritual piercing of the heart produces an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1129)
We must distinguish the ordinary grace of spiritual transverberation and outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which we should all desire, from the extraordinary vision and extraordinary physical piercing of the heart, with miraculous manifestations of Holy Spirit, which we should not desire. Only a few of the faithful are called to be miracle-workers in the Mission of the Church.
But having our heart spiritually pierced and set on fire by the Holy Spirit, thus becoming a living flame of divine love by participation, is something that we should all desire. We already have the Holy Spirit hidden in our hearts through the sacraments of the Church. We should pray for a spiritual wounding to pierce our hearts and to manifest the presence and love of God, who dwells there.
Such a wounding is a communication from God that transforms us and unites us to God more perfectly, but since transformation is difficult and painful, most people resist it. As Flannery O’Connor puts it, “All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful” (The Habit of Being).
To communicate is to produce something in common, such as ideas, thoughts, emotions, longings, delights, affections, or volitions, but the communication proper to transverberation is ineffable, thus a trans-conceptual and non-propositional participation in God’s own knowledge and love, which is received by not knowing and not desiring, at least not in a human mode of knowing or desiring.
Pseudo-Dionysius in his Mystical Theology calls it a secret and hidden “supersubstantial radiance of divine obscurity,” which leaves it rather mysterious, as it should be. If you want to understand this apophatic Christian goal better, a good place to begin is with The Dark Knowledge of God by Charles Journet (Sheed & Ward, 1948, or Cluny Media, 2020).
To emphasize the external, miraculous, or extraordinary manifestations of it is to misunderstand it from the start.
© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.