St. Teresa of Avila
Saint Teresa of Jesús, also called Saint Teresa of Ávila, was a prominent Spanish mystic, Carmelite nun, and writer of the Counter Reformation. She was a reformer of the Carmelite Order and is considered to be, along with John of the Cross, a founder of the Discalced Carmelites. In 1970 she was named a Doctor of the Church by Pope Paul VI.
Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda Dávila y Ahumada Borned in Ávila, Spain, on March 28, 1515, St. Teresa was the daughter of a Toledo merchant and his second wife, who died when Teresa was 15, one of ten children. Shortly after this event, Teresa was entrusted to the care of the Augustinian nuns. After reading the letters of St. Jerome, Teresa resolved to enter a religious life. In 1535, she joined the Carmelite Order. She spent a number of relatively average years in the convent, punctuated by a severe illness that left her legs paralyzed for three years, but then 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 impetus, she set herself to the reformation of her order, beginning with her attempt to master herself and her adherence to the rule. Gathering a group of supporters, Teresa endeavored 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-1560s, she wrote the Way of Perfection and the 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 in 1582.
St. Teresa left to posterity many new convents, which she continued founding up to the year of her death. She also left a significant legacy of writings, which represent important benchmarks in the history of Christian mysticism. These works include the Way of Perfection and the Interior Castle. She also left an autobiography, the Life of St. Teresa of Ávila.
“...aconsejaría yo a los que tienen oración, en especial al principio, procuren amistad y trato con otras personas que traten de lo mismo. Es cosa importantísima, aunque no sea sino ayudarse unos a otros con sus oraciones, ¡cuánto más que hay muchas más ganancias! Y no sé yo por qué no se ha de permitir que quien comenzare de veras a amar a Dios y a servirle, deje de tratar con algunas personas sus placeres y trabajos, que de todo tienen los que tienen oración.”
“Hope, O my soul, hope. You know neither the day nor the hour. Watch carefully, for everything passes quickly, even though your impatience turns a very short time into a long one.”
“Be gentle to all, and stern with yourself.”
“At night a hooded monk passed by where there were no lamps.I could not see his face. I only heard these words he kept repeating:"Teach me, dear Lord, all that you know."I knew instantly a great treasure had entered my soul.”
“That name--my conception of Him--extended to mea hand that led to a placewhere even His divine name could not exist.Why?”
“God withholds Himself from no one who perseveres.”
“Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing frighten you. Everything passes away except God.”
“For prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God.”
“Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours,Yours are the eyes through which to look out Christ's compassion to the worldYours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good;Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.”
“It is love alone that gives worth to all things.”
“Untilled ground, however rich, will bring forth thistles and thorns; so also the mind of man.”
“Thank God for the things that I do not own.”
“ Union is as if in a room there were two large windows through which the light streamed in it enters in diffrent places but it all becomes one. ”
“It is foolish to think that we will enter heaven without entering into ourselves.”