Christ Has No Body
Teresa of Avila

Christ has no body but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks Compassion on this world,

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,

Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Christ has no body now but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

Teresa of Avila (1515–1582) was born in Spain. She entered a Carmelite convent when she was eighteen, and across her long life earned a reputation as a mystic, reformer, and writer who experienced divine visions. She founded a convent and wrote the book The Way of Perfection for her nuns. Other books by her include her Autobiography and The Interior Castle. This poem is regularly attributed to Teresa, even though it doesn’t appear in her writings. For a biography on this important saint, see Teresa of Avila (New York: Continuum, 2004) by Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury and Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford.