St. Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church, Carmelite Reformer, Mystic

St. Teresa was born in Avila, Spain on March 28, 1515, the third child of Don Alonzo Sanchez de Cepeda and his second wife, Doña Beatriz Davila y Ahumada. When Teresa was 15, her mother died, leaving behind ten children. Teresa was considered the “most beloved of them all.” She was of medium height, large rather than small, and well-proportioned. She had the reputation of being very beautiful. Her personality was extroverted, her manner was very affectionate and charming, with a wonderful sense of humor, and she had the ability to adapt to all kinds of persons and circumstances. Teresa was gifted in many areas, including: writing, music, needlework, and household duties.

In 1531, her father entrusted her education to the Augustinian nuns at Santa Maria de Gracia. As a young woman, she became ill for a period of time and stayed at her uncle’s home to recover. While there, she read the Letters of St. Jerome, which led her to a religious vocation. When her father refused to consent to her vocation, she ran away from home and persuaded a brother to do the same so that they both might obtain the religious habit.

At the age of 20, Teresa entered the Carmelite Monastery of the Incarnation at Avila, where she received the habit the following year and made her commitment to a life of prayer and penance. Shortly after her profession, she became seriously ill and failed to respond to medical treatment of any kind. As a last resort, her father took her to a woman healer, who was famous throughout Castille, but Teresa’s health showed no improvement. She was then brought to the home of her Uncle Pedro in Cepeda to recover; however, instead of regaining her health, she grew increasingly worse and her father brought her back to Avila.

On August 15, 1539, Teresa fell into a coma so deeply that she was thought to be dead. After 4 days she revived, but her legs were paralyzed for three years. During these years of suffering, she began the practice of mental prayer. For the next 18 years, she had mystical experiences and underwent a type of conversion which emptied her of egoism – her desire to be appreciated by others – that had hindered her spiritual development. Teresa experienced a vision of the “sorely wounded Christ” which forever changed her life.

From this point forward, Teresa moved into a period in which she began to focus more acutely on Christ's passion and death. With these visions as her impetus, she set herself to the reformation of her order, beginning with her attempt to master and perfect herself and her adherence to the rule. Gathering a group of supporters, Teresa worked to create a more primitive type of Carmelite. From 1560 until her death, she struggled to establish and broaden the movement of Discalced (shoeless) Carmelites. During the mid-1560s, she wrote the Way of Perfection and the Meditations on the Canticle. In 1567, she met St. John of the Cross, whom she enlisted to extend her reform into the male side of the Carmelite Order. Teresa died in 1582. She was beatified in 1614, and canonized in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV.

The account of St. Teresa’s spiritual life contained in the Life written by herself (completed in 1565, an earlier version being lost), in the Relations, and in the Interior Castle, forms one of the most remarkable spiritual biographies of our times and has been compared with the Confessions of St. Augustine.

"The chief among Teresa’s virtues was the love of God, which our Lord Jesus Christ increased by means of many visions and revelations. He made her his Spouse on one occasion. At other times she saw an angel with a flaming dart piercing her heart. Through these heavenly gifts the flame of divine love in her heart became so strong that, inspired by God, she made the extremely difficult vow of always doing what seemed to her most perfect and most conducive to God’s glory.” (Gregory XV in the Bull of Canonization)

Favorite Quotes of St. Teresa of Avila

"From silly devotions and sour-faced saints good Lord, deliver us!"

"May God preserve us from stupid nuns!"

"Experience has taught me what a house full of women is like. God preserve us from such a state."

"It is love that gives worth to all things."

"Pain is never permanent."

"Be gentle to all and stern with yourself."

"Mental prayer in my opinion is nothing but an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us."

"Remember how Saint Augustine tells us about seeking God in many places and eventually finding Him within himself...All one need to do is go into solitude and look at Him within oneself."

"The highest perfection consists not in interior favors or in great raptures, but in the bringing of our wills so closely into conformity with the Will of God that, as soon as we realize that He wills anything, we desire it ourselves with all our might."

"God has been very good to me, for I never dwell upon anything wrong which a person has done, so as to remember it afterwards. If I do remember it, I always see some other virtue in that person."

St. Teresa’s Bookmark

Let nothing trouble you, let nothing frighten you.
All things are passing; God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
He who possesses God lacks nothing:
God alone suffices.

Go here to the Carmel Podcast to listen to an MP3 file with St. Teresa on The Way of Perfection.