Saint Teresa of Avila

TODAY is the Feast Day of Saint Teresa of Avila, known as "our holy mother Saint Teresa of Jesus" to her Carmelite, spiritual children. On this day in the Carmelite cloisters, it would be a solemnity and "recreation day", where the Sisters pause all work, lift the simple silence, and celebrate all day with music, delicious food, laughter, and games. So who is this woman?

Teresa of Jesus is one of the most radiant Saints. She is everything mystical and everything human, a true image of Christ who in all His divinity lost nothing of His humanity. Teresa would one moment have her daughters hold her down in the choir so she wouldn't levitate to the ceiling in the midst of her ecstasy, and the next be dancing on a table with a tambourine, telling her daughters to liven up because the brides of Christ ought to be the most joyful of all.

She is the Saint who as a child ran away with her brother to try to be martyred for Jesus, then in her 20's fell into vanity, gossip, and the trap of keeping higher "society" within her convent (hard to believe, maybe, but true), and then through Jesus' transformation of her heart became a fierce and passionate reformer of the Carmelite order, traveled all through Spain making foundations of these monasteries, suffered immense persecution, and wrote some of the most profound spiritual masterpieces of all time.

She is the first female Doctor of the Church, specifically designated by Holy Mother Church as a sure guide in prayer. Her deepest "cry" within the Church was for us to truly know and encounter Jesus in prayer, and to love Him totally, to give Him everything without fear or hesitation because "God cannot be outdone in generosity", as she wrote. If this is a new introduction for you to Saint Teresa of Jesus (or of Avila, as she's most commonly known), I can't encourage you enough to let this woman, spiritual mother, and friend walk with you in your own journey to being set ablaze for Christ.

See below for some of Teresa's own words!

"You pay God a compliment by asking great things of Him.”

“From silly devotions and sour-faced saints, good Lord, deliver us!” 

"The important thing is not to think much but to love much; and so do that which best stirs you to love."

“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

“The important thing is not to think much but to love much; and so do that which best stirs you to love.”

“This Beloved of ours is merciful and good. Besides, he so deeply longs for our love that he keeps calling us to come closer. This voice of his is so sweet that the poor soul falls apart in the face of her own inability to instantly do whatever he asks of her. And so you can see, hearing him hurts much more than not being able to hear him… For now, his voice reaches us through words spoken by good people, through listening to spiritual talks, and reading sacred literature. God calls to us in countless little ways all the time. Through illnesses and suffering and through sorrow he calls to us. Through a truth glimpsed fleetingly in a state of prayer he calls to us. No matter how halfhearted such insights may be, God rejoices whenever we learn what he is trying to teach us.”

. . . it is presumptuous in me to wish to choose my path, because I cannot tell which path is best for me. I must leave it to the Lord, Who knows me, to lead me by the path which is best for me, so that in all things His will may be done.”

“In light of heaven, the worst suffering on earth will be seen to be no more serious than one night in an inconvenient hotel.”

“Each of us has a soul, but we forget to value it. We don’t remember that we are creatures made in the image of God. We don’t understand the great secrets hidden inside of us.”