SAINT TERESA OF AVILA

Teresa Sanchez Cepeda Davila y Ahumada, born at
Avila, Old Castile, 28 March, 1515; died at Alba de Tormes, 4 Oct., 1582.
The third child of Don Alonso Sanchez de Cepeda by his second wife, Doña
Beatriz Davila y Ahumada, who died when the saint was in her fourteenth
year, Teresa was brought up by her saintly father, a lover of serious books,
and a tender and pious mother. After her death and the marriage of her
eldest sister, Teresa was sent for her education to the Augustinian nuns at
Avila, but owing to illness she left at the end of eighteen months, and for
some years remained with her father and occasionally with other relatives,
notably an uncle who made her acquainted with the Letters of St. Jerome,
which determined her to adopt the religious life, not so much through any
attraction towards it, as through a desire of choosing the safest course.
Unable to obtain her father’s consent she left his house unknown to him on
Nov., 1535, to enter the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation at Avila,
which then counted 140 nuns. The wrench from her family caused her a pain
which she ever afterwards compared to that of death. However, her father at
once yielded and Teresa took the habit.

After her profession in the following year she became very seriously ill,
and underwent a prolonged cure and such unskillful medical treatment that
she was reduced to a most pitiful state, and even after partial recovery
through the intercession of St. Joseph, her health remained permanently
impaired. During these years of suffering she began the practice of mental
prayer, but fearing that her conversations with some world-minded relatives,
frequent visitors at the convent, rendered her unworthy of the graces God
bestowed on her in prayer, discontinued it, until she came under the
influence, first of the Dominicans, and afterwards of the Jesuits.
Meanwhile God had begun to visit her with “intellectual visions and
locutions”, that is manifestations in which the exterior senses were in no
way affected, the things seen and the words heard being directly impressed
upon her mind, and giving her wonderful strength in trials, reprimanding her
for unfaithfulness, and consoling her in trouble. Unable to reconcile such
graces with her shortcomings, which her delicate conscience represented as
grievous faults, she had recourse not only to the most spiritual confessors
she could find, but also to some saintly laymen, who, never suspecting that
the account she gave them of her sins was greatly exaggerated, believed
these manifestations to be the work of the evil spirit. The more she
endeavoured to resist them the more powerfully did God work in her soul.
The whole city of Avila was troubled by the reports of the visions of this
nun. It was reserved to St. Francis Borgia and St. Peter of Alcantara, and
afterwards to a number of Dominicans (particularly Pedro Ibañez and Domingo
Bañez), Jesuits, and other religious and secular priests, to discern the
work of God and to guide her on a safe road.
The account of her spiritual life contained in the “Life written by herself”
(completed in 1565, an earlier version being lost), in the “Relations”, and
in the “Interior Castle”, forms one of the most remarkable spiritual
biographies with which only the “Confessions of St. Augustine” can bear
comparison. To this period belong also such extraordinary manifestations as
the piercing or transverberation of her heart, the spiritual espousals, and
the mystical marriage. A vision of the place destined for her in hell in
case she should have been unfaithful to grace, determined her to seek a more
perfect life. After many troubles and much opposition St. Teresa founded
the convent of Discalced Carmelite Nuns of the Primitive Rule of St. Joseph
at Avila (24 Aug., 1562), and after six months obtained permission to take
up her residence there. Four years later she received the visit of the
General of the Carmelites, John-Baptist Rubeo (Rossi), who not only approved
of what she had done but granted leave for the foundation of other convents
of friars as well as nuns. In rapid succession she established her nuns at
Medina del Campo (1567), Malagon and Valladolid (1568), Toledo and Pastrana
(1569), Salamanca (1570), Alba de Tormes (1571), Segovia (1574), Veas and
Seville (1575), and Caravaca (1576). In the “Book of Foundations” she tells
the story of these convents, nearly all of which were established in spite
of violent opposition but with manifest assistance from above. Everywhere
she found souls generous enough to embrace the austerities of the primitive
rule of Carmel. Having made the acquaintance of Antonio de Heredia, prior
of Medina, and St. John of the Cross (q.v.), she established her reform
among the friars (28 Nov., 1568), the first convents being those of Duruelo
(1568), Pastrana (1569), Mancera, and Alcalá de Henares (1570).

A new epoch began with the entrance into religion of Jerome Gratian,
inasmuch as this remarkable man was almost immediately entrusted by the
nuncio with the authority of visitor Apostolic of the Carmelite friars and
nuns of the old observance in Andalusia, and as such considered himself
entitled to overrule the various restrictions insisted upon by the general
and the general chapter. On the death of the nuncio and the arrival of his
successor a fearful storm burst over St. Teresa and her work, lasting four
years and threatening to annihilate the nascent reform. The incidents of
this persecution are best described in her letters. The storm at length
passed, and the province of Discalced Carmelites, with the support of Philip
II, was approved and canonically established on 22 June, 1580. St. Teresa,
old and broken in health, made further foundations at Villnuava de la Jara
and Palencia (1580), Soria (1581), Granada (through her assiatant the
Venerable Anne of Jesus), and at Burgos (1582). She left this latter place
at the end of July, and, stopping at Palencia, Valldolid, and Medina del
Campo, reached Alba de Torres in September, suffering intensely. Soon she
took to her bed and passed away on 4 Oct., 1582, the following day, owing to
the reform of the calendar, being reckoned as 15 October. After some years her
body was transferred to Avila, but later on reconveyed to Alba, where it is
still preserved incorrupt. Her heart, too, showing the marks of the
Transverberation, is exposed there to the veneration of the faithful. She
was beatified in 1614, and canonized in 1622 by Gregory XV, the feast being
fixed on 15 October.

St. Teresa’s position among writers on mystical theology is unique. In all
her writings on this subject she deals with her personal experiences, which
a deep insight and analytical gifts enabled her to explain clearly. The
Thomistic substratum may be traced to the influence of her confessors and
directors, many of whom belonged to the Dominican Order. She herself had no
pretension to found a school in the accepted sense of the term, and there is
no vestige in her writings of any influence of the Aeropagite, the
Patristic, or the Scholastic Mystical schools, as represented among others,
by the German Dominican Mystics. She is intensely personal, her system
going exactly as far as her experiences, but not a step further.
A word must be added on the orthography of her name. It has of late become
the fashion to write her name Teresa or Teresia, without “h”, not only in
Spanish and Italian, where the “h” could have no place, but also in French,
German, and Latin, which ought to preserve the etymological spelling. As it
is derived from a Greek name, Tharasia, the saintly wife of St. Paulinus of
Nola, it should be written Theresia in German and Latin, and Thérèse in French.

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