Teresa of Avila

:For other people known as "Saint Teresa", see Teresa

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Saint Teresa of Avila (known in religion as Teresa de Jesús, baptised as Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada) was a Spanish Roman Catholic mystic and monastic reformer; born at Avila (53 miles north-west of Madrid), Old Castile, March 28, 1515; died at Alba de Tormes October 4, 1582. Her feast day is October 15.

Related Topics:
Spanish - Roman Catholic - Mystic - Avila - Madrid - Castile - March 28 - 1515 - Alba de Tormes - October 4 - 1582 - October 15

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The deeply pious and ascetic ideal after the example of saints and martyrs was early instilled in her by her father, the knight Alonso Sánchez de Cepeda, and especially by her mother, Beatriz d'Ávila y Ahumada. Their paternal family were probably Jewish converts. Teresa was fascinated by accounts of the lives of the saints, and ran away from home several times as a girl to find martyrdom among Moors. Leaving her parental home secretly one morning in 1534, she entered the monastery of the Incarnation of the Carmelite nuns at Avila.

Related Topics:
Saint - Martyr - Knight - Jewish convert - Ran away from home - 1534 - Monastery - Carmelite nuns - Avila

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In the cloister, she suffered much from illness. Early in her sickness, she experienced periods of spiritual ecstasy through the use of the devotional book, Abecedario espiritual, commonly known as the "third" or the "spiritual alphabet" (published, six parts, 1537-1554). This work, following the example of similar writings of the medieval mystics, consisted of directions for tests of conscience and for spiritual self concentration and inner contemplation, known in mystical nomenclature as oratio recollectionis or oratio mentalis. Besides this, she employed other mystical ascetic works; such as the Tractatus de oratione et meditatione of Peter of Alcantara, and perhaps many of those upon which Ignatius Loyola based his Exercitia, and not improbably this Exercitia itself.

Related Topics:
Cloister - Ecstasy - Abecedario espiritual - 1537 - 1554 - Conscience - Oratio recollectionis - Oratio mentalis - Tractatus de oratione et meditatione - Peter of Alcantara - Ignatius Loyola - Exercitia

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She professed, in her illness, to rise from the lowest stage, "recollection", to the "devotions of peace" or even to the "devotions of union", which was one of perfect ecstasy. With this was frequently joined a rich "blessing of tears". As the merely outer and void Roman Catholic distinction between mortal and venial sin dawned upon her, she came upon the secret of the awful terror of sinful iniquity, and the inherent nature of original sin. With this was correlated the consciousness of utter natural impotence and the necessity of absolute subjection to God.

Related Topics:
Roman Catholic - Mortal - Venial sin - Original sin - Consciousness - God

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The intimation on the part of various of her friends (c. 1556) of a diabolical, not divine, element in her supernatural experiences led her to the most horrible self-inflicted tortures and mortifications, far in excess of her ordinary asceticism, until Francis Borgia, to whom she had made confession, reassured her. On St. Peter's Day of 1559 she became firmly convinced that Christ was present to her in bodily form, though invisible. This vision lasted almost uninterruptedly for more than two years. In another vision, a seraphim drove the fiery point of a golden lance repeatedly through her heart, causing an unexampled, as it were, spiritual-bodily pain. The memory of this episode served as an inspiration in determining her long struggle of love and suffering, from which emanated her life-long passion for conformation to the life and endurance of Jesus, to be epitomized in the cry usually inscribed as a motto upon her images: "Lord, either let me suffer or let me die."

Related Topics:
Diabolical - Mortification - Francis Borgia - St. Peter - 1559 - Seraphim

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