Saint Introduction: St. Teresa of Avila
Objective: Meet St. Teresa of Avila, the great Spanish mystic and reformer who renewed the Carmelite order and was named a Doctor of the Church.
Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) was a Spanish nun, mystic, reformer, and writer — one of only four women named a Doctor of the Church. As a young Carmelite she found her convent comfortable and worldly, with little real prayer. After a deep conversion in her late thirties, Teresa felt called to reform: she founded the 'Discalced' (barefoot) Carmelites, communities of strict poverty, silence, and intense prayer. She faced fierce opposition — from within her own order, from officials, even investigation by the Inquisition — yet she founded seventeen convents, traveling Spain in a covered wagon well into her sixties. Teresa combined soaring mystical experience with shrewd practicality and a famous sense of humor. ('Lord, deliver us from sour-faced saints!' she is said to have quipped, and once told God, 'If this is how You treat Your friends, no wonder You have so few.') Her books The Interior Castle and her Autobiography map the soul's journey toward union with God and are spiritual classics still read today. She partnered with the young friar St. John of the Cross to reform the men's branch too. Her virtue: a fearless, joyful determination — what she called 'a determined determination' to seek God. Her feast day is October 15.
Resources
Discussion Questions
- 1Teresa reformed her order by making it stricter, not easier. Why might less comfort lead to more holiness?
- 2How can humor and joy be signs of real holiness?
- 3What did she mean by 'a determined determination' to seek God?
Copy Teresa's famous bookmark prayer in your notebook: 'Let nothing disturb you... God alone suffices.' Then write one sentence on what it would mean to truly believe that 'God alone suffices.'
Vocabulary
- mystic
- one given an extraordinary, direct experience of union with God in prayer
- Doctor of the Church
- a saint recognized for outstanding contribution to theology or doctrine
- Discalced
- 'barefoot'; the reformed, stricter branch of the Carmelite order Teresa founded
'Let nothing disturb you; let nothing frighten you. All things pass; God alone suffices.' — St. Teresa of Avila