SAINT TERESA DE ÁVILA (1547-74)

One of the great mystics and religious women of the Roman Catholic Church celebrated author of influential spiritual classics, originator of the Carmelite Reform, which restored and emphasized the austerity and contemplative character of primitive Carmelite life and first woman doctor of the church.

Her mother died in 1529 and despite her father´s oposition Teresa entered probably in 1535 the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation at Ávila.

Within two years her health collapsed and she was an invalid for three years during which time she developed a love for mental prayer. After her recovery she stopped praying. She continued for 15 years in a state divided between a worldly and a divine spirit until in 1555 she underwent a religious awakening.

In 1558 Teresa began to consider the restoration of Carmelite life to its original observance of austerity which had relaxed in the 14th and 15th centuries. Her reform required utter withdrawal so that the nuns could mediate on divine law and through a prayerful life of penance exercise what she termed our vocation of reparation for the sins of mankind.

In 1562 with Pope Pius IV´s authorization she opened the first convent (St. Joseph´s) of the Carmelite Reform. A storm of hostility came from municipal and religious personages especially because the convent existed without endowment but she staunchly insisted on poverty and subsistence only through public alms.

John Baptist Rossi the Carmelite prior general from Rome went to Ávila in 1567 and approved the reform directing Teresa to found more convents and to establish monasteries. In the same year while at Medina del Campo she met a young Carmelite priest Juan de Yepes (later St. John of the Cross) who she realized could initiate the Carmelite Reform for men. A year later Juan opened the first monastery of the Primitive Rule at Duruelo.

Despite frail health and great difficulties she spent the rest of her life establishing and nurturing 16 more convents throughout Spain.

In 1575 while she was at the Seville convent a jurisdictional erupted between the friars of the restored Primitive Rule known as the Discalced Carmelites(barefoot or wearers of sandals) and the observants of the Mitigated Rule called the Calced Carmelites (Or Shod). Although she had foreseen the troble and endeavoured to prevent it, her attempts failed. The Carmelite general to whom she had been misrepresented ordered her to a convent in Castilla and to cease founding additional convents. Juan was subsequently imprisoned at Toledo in 1577.

In 1579 largely through the efforts of King Philip II of Spain who knew and admired Teresa a solution was affected whereby the Carmelites of the Primitive Rule were given independent jurisdiction confirmed in 1580 by a rescript of Pope Gregory XIII.

Teresa broken in health was then directed to resume the reform. She made exhausting missions and was fatally stricken en route to Ávila from Brurgos.

In 1622 she was canonized by Pope Gregory XV and in 1970 she was elevated to doctor of the church by Pope Paul VI.
Her feast day is October 15.

Teresa´s ascetic doctrine has been accepted as the classical exposition of the contemplative life and her spiritual writings are among the most widely read.
Her Life of the Mother Teresa of Jesus (1611) is autobiographical and Book of the Foundations (1610) describes the establishment of her convents.
Her writings on the progress of the Christian soul toward God are recognized masterpieces: The Way of Perfection (1583), The Interior Castle (1588), Spiritual Relations, Exclamations of the Soul to God (1588) and Conceptions on the Love of God.
Of her poems 31 are extant.
Of her letters 458.