The saints

Saint Teresa of Avila

Nun, Mystic, and Doctor of the Church · Feast day October 15 · 1515 to 1582 · Avila, Spain · Also known as Teresa de Jesus, Teresa of Jesus

Saint Teresa of Avila was a Spanish nun who reformed her order, wrote some of the greatest works on prayer ever penned, and combined a soaring life of union with God with a sharp wit and tireless practical energy. She was among the first women named a Doctor of the Church.

Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.Psalm 73:25 (KJV)

A worldly nun awakened

Teresa was born into a large family in Avila, in the high country of Castile, a lively and charming girl who entered a Carmelite convent as a young woman, more from prudence than fervor. For nearly twenty years she lived a comfortable, half-hearted religious life, drawn between God and the pleasant distractions of the convent parlor, praying poorly and often not at all.

Then, in her late thirties, kneeling before an image of the wounded Christ, she was pierced to the heart by his love and her own lukewarmness, and gave herself to God without reserve. From that surrender flowed the rest of her extraordinary life, and she never tired of urging others not to waste the years she felt she had wasted.

Prayer and the interior castle

Teresa was given a profound life of prayer, rising through what she described as clear stages toward union with God, and at times caught up in raptures so intense that, she said, the soul is set on fire with love. Yet she was intensely practical and deeply suspicious of anything showy, testing every experience against Scripture, humility, and obedience, and keeping her feet on the ground with her famous common sense and humor.

She wrote of the soul as an Interior Castle with many rooms, through which the seeker moves inward toward the King who dwells at the center, and in her Life and The Way of Perfection she taught ordinary people how to pray, describing prayer simply as a close sharing between friends, taking time frequently to be alone with the God who we know loves us.

The reform

Convinced that her order had grown lax, Teresa set out to found convents of stricter observance, returning to poverty, silence, and deep prayer, the reform called the Discalced, or barefoot, Carmelites. It was grinding work: she traveled the rough roads of Spain by mule and cart, founded house after house, and met fierce opposition from those who resented change, even being investigated by the Inquisition.

With the young friar John of the Cross she extended the reform to the men of the order. Through years of illness, hardship, and resistance, she pressed on with courage and good humor, once telling God, after a fall in the mud, that if this is how he treated his friends, it was no wonder he had so few.

Let nothing disturb you

Teresa died in 1582, worn out by her labors, having founded seventeen convents and left the church a treasury of writing on prayer and the love of God. On a bookmark in her breviary was found a poem in her hand that has comforted countless souls since: Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you; all things are passing; God never changes; whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices.

In 1970 she was declared a Doctor of the Church, one of the first women so honored, recognized as a teacher of the whole church in the ways of prayer.

Why Teresa still matters

Teresa proves that the deepest mysticism and the most down-to-earth practicality can live in one soul, that prayer is not for a special few but the birthright of every believer, and that it is never too late to give oneself wholly to God. Her counsel is still the surest of guides: God alone suffices.

A note for all traditions: the saints are honored across the church as examples of faith and, in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, as friends who pray with us, never worshiped, for worship belongs to God alone. What Scripture records and what later tradition holds are distinguished above. In every tradition there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, and every believer, not only the saints, is called to follow him.

Related: Saint Ignatius of Loyola · How to pray · Saints for October 15 · Saint of the day