St. Teresa of Avila

            Teresa was born in Avila, Spain on March 28, 1515. She was the daughter of a Toledo merchant and his second wife who died when Teresa was fifteen. Shortly after her mother died, Teresa was placed in the care of the Augustinian nuns. After reading the letters of St. Jerome, Teresa wanted to enter a religious life. In 1535 she joined the Carmelite Order.

After a number of years in the convent, she suffered a severe illness that left her legs paralyzed for three years, during which she experienced a vision of “the sorely wounded Christ” that changed her life forever.

From this point forward, Teresa moved into a period of increasingly ecstatic experiences in which she came to focus more and more sharply on Christ’s passion. With these visions as her motivation, she worked for the reformation of her Order, beginning with her attempt to master herself and her adherence to the rule. Gathering a group of supporters, Teresa tried to create a more primitive type of Carmelite.

From 1560 until her death, Teresa struggled to establish and broaden the movement of Discalced, or shoeless, Carmelites. During the mid-1560’s, she wrote “The Way of Perfection” and “Meditations on the Canticle”. In 1567 she met St. John of the Cross, who she enlisted to extend her reform into the male side of the Carmelite Order.

Teresa died on October 4, 1582 at the age of 67. She was canonized a Saint by Pope Gregory XV in 1622. Her feast day was set as October 15th.