Oct. 15th - St. Teresa of Avila

Today, we celebrate the feast of St. Teresa of Avila, who was born in 1515 in Spain. She comes from a family of twelve children. Teresa’s mother died when she was only fourteen years old. Teresa wrote, “As soon as I began to understand how great a loss, I had sustained by losing her, I was very much afflicted; and so I went before an image of Our Blessed Lady, and besought her with many tears that she would vouchsafe to be my mother.”

Teresa ran away from home to secretly join a Carmelite monastery. After a serious illness, she began to read a spiritual book, which helped her to develop mental prayer, and at times attained, “the prayer of union”. She began to have mystical experiences, and even levitated into the air above the ground. On one occasion, she became mystically married to Christ. When this happened, she had a vision of angel, who appeared to her holding a golden dart; at the end of the point was fire. She felt the angel thrust the dart into her heart, several times, and when the angel withdrew the dart, it left her on fire with a great love of God.

In 1560, the idea first emerged of a new Carmel, where the Rule could be followed more closely, and this was realized two years later when the monastery of St. Joseph was founded without any endowments and "following the Primitive Rule. And so, for 15 years she engaged in founding new monasteries of the Carmelite Order. She also aided St. John of the Cross in reforming the men’s order. Her sisters lived a very poor life, in silence, and were discalced (they didn’t wear shoes).

She wrote her own autobiography, a book called the Way of Perfection and another book called the Interior Castle. In her autobiography she mentions the importance of meditating on the humanity of Jesus. She said, “Going into the oratory one day, I saw an image, some workers had brought in, to put into storage. It depicted the wounded Christ and was so true a rendering of the unspeakable horror, of what took place for our sake, that it moved me to visualize Him that way from that moment on. I felt so ungrateful for those wounds that my heart seemed to split in half within me. I threw myself down near Him weeping bitter tears, and begged Him to strengthen me once and for all so that I might not offend Him again.”

Her books brought about great insight into the mystery of prayer, and eventually helped her to be proclaimed a doctor of the Church.

Throughout her life, she suffered from ailments that baffled doctors. Despite her ill health, she founded seventeen monasteries. Most journeys to build the convents were done by traveling in a cart by mule over extremely poor roads. On one occasion, it is believed she fell from the cart and remarked, “If you treat your spouse this way, it’s no wonder you have so few friends.”

Her health deteriorated rapidly on one of her journeys. She told one of the sisters, “Alas, my daughter, I have reached the house of death.” She was given the sacrament of anointing of the sick. She sat up to receive her last Holy Communion, exclaiming, “O my Lord, now is the time that we shall see each other!” and she died in the arms Anne, her companion on the journey. She died on Oct. 4^th, but her feast day is celebrated on Oct. 15^th. She is often pictured with a heart, an arrow and a book.

St. Teresa of Avila, help us to pray, that we may be drawn ever nearer to Jesus, your spouse!