Oct 15 - St Teresa of Avila

+ Teresa of Avila was born in March of 1515, daughter of Don Alonso Sanchez de Cepeda and Dona Beatriz. She grew up reading the lives of the saints and playing a “hermit” in the garden. Crippled by disease in her youth, which led to her being well educated at home, Teresa was cured after prayer to St. Joseph. Her mother died when she was 12, and she prayed to Our Lady to be her replacement. Her father opposed her entry to religious life, so she left home without telling anyone, and entered a Carmelite house at 17, taking the name Teresa of Jesus. Seeing her conviction to her call, her father and family finally consented. Soon after taking her vows, Teresa became gravely ill, and her condition was aggravated by the inadequate medical help she received; she never fully recovered her health.

 

At this time Teresa began receiving visions, and was examined by Dominicans and Jesuits, including St. Francis Borgia, who pronounced her visions to be holy and true. She considered her original house too lax in its rule, and so she founded a reformed convent (discalced: shoeless) of St. John of Avila. Teresa founded several houses, often against fierce opposition from local authorities. She was a mystical writer writing The Way of Perfection and Meditations on the Song of Songs. She met and became friends with St. John of the Cross; they encouraged each other along the way of spiritual perfection.

 

Teresa died October 4, 1582, of natural causes, in the arms of her secretary and close friend Blessed Anne of St. Bartholomew. Her body is incorrupt, and her relics preserved at Alba. Her heart shows signs of Transverberation (piercing) and is displayed too. She was canonized in 1622 along with St. Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier and Philip Neri, and was one of the first women to be named Doctor of the Church, by Pope Paul VI in 1970. She is patron of the sick, and those who are ridiculed for their piety.

 

Teresa knew intensely the reality of how the spiritual life of the individual is directly and irrevocably intertwined with that of Jesus as the branches of the vine are vitally related to the root! For Teresa of Avila life was Christ, and, for love of him, a life of aiding others in their spiritual growth and journeys was her true vocation; and this she did in spite of physical conditions that plagued her with illness. It was the hope of glory, illumined by the flame of faith, planted in her heart at her own baptism, and then renewed at her religious profession, that encouraged Teresa along the way, and she counted on the prayers to God that only the Holy Spirit himself could emit as groans in the heart of the Father to make her efforts successful.

 

May we revel in our intimate relationship with God today, count on the Spirit’s prayer on our behalf, and then, nourishing the gift of faith already bestowed on us, by the Eucharistic meal, prove our love for God by the way we deal with others as he would!

 

Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life.