St. Teresa of Avila
(sources: www.catholic online and www.biographyonline)
The future St. Teresa of Avila (also known as “St. Teresa of Jesus”) was born Teresa Sanchez de Cepeda y Ahumada on March 28, 1515 in Avila, Spain. Europe then had already embarked on colonization and in a few years would see the start of the Protestant Reformation. The times then seemed ripe for a new way of finding inner peace as Teresa introduced.
She was a great mystic, writer, and reformer of the Carmelite order.
Even as a young girl, Teresa seemed to manifest some sanctity. With her older brother, she left the city “to go to the land of the Moors and beg them, out of the love of God, to cut off our heads there.” They were brought back to the city. She then led an ordinary teenager’s life, caring about boys, clothes, flirting and rebelling. Thinking his daughter had gotten out of control, her father sent her to a convent. There she learned mental prayer but struggled with distractions. Malaria later afflicted Teresa, followed by paralysis. Her illness provided an excuse to stop prayer and she was convinced she was a sinner. This spiritual aridity lingered on and, despite the prodding of a priest for her to resume praying, Teresa struggled with mental prayer.
Eventually, as she started to pray again, Teresa experienced the gifts of mental prayer and spiritual gifts, experiencing peace. She founded a new convent, St. Joseph’s, espousing a simple life of poverty devoted to prayer. She is the founder of the Discalced Carmelites.
She died on October 4, 1582 at the age of 67.
St. Teresa is the patron of headache sufferers and Spanish Catholic writers.
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Theresians may be amused to know that their school’s patron saint seems to have shared their propensity to intellectualize, criticize, and rebel at times. “She often met with criticism including the papal nuncio who used the rather descriptive phrase ‘a restless disobedient gadabout who has gone about teaching as though she were a professor’ ”
Strict discipline, love and common sense — these were the hallmarks of St. Teresa’s supervision over her nuns. They too marked the Theresian education.
We fondly recall that life-sized statue that adorned the landing of the marble stairway of our old campus at 920 San Marcelino. She gazes upward with deep serenity. She holds a pen and a book. Foremost among her written works is “The Interior Castle/The Mansions”, “The Way of Perfection”, and volumes of poems the most popular being the prayer “Nada Te Turbe”. This prayer is also know as “St. Teresa’s Bookmark” because, “according to tradition, she carried it around in her prayer book, where it was found after her death….” (source: www.ourcatholicprayers.com)