Teresa of Ávila

Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada was born in Ávila, Spain. As a girl she loved tales of knights and saints, and at seven she ran away with her brother hoping to be martyred, but an uncle brought them back. At twenty she entered the Carmelite convent of the Incarnation in Ávila, where life was comfortable and full of visitors. She suffered severe illness, and for years she struggled in prayer, until around 1554, before an image of the wounded Christ, she experienced a deep conversion. She then reported visions and mystical experiences, which some of her confessors doubted. In 1562 she founded a small, strict convent, St. Joseph's, where nuns lived in poverty, enclosure and prayer, wearing sandals; they became known as the Discalced, or barefoot, Carmelites. Despite illness and opposition she traveled across Spain by mule cart, founding seventeen convents, and with John of the Cross she reformed the Carmelite friars. Her books, including her Life, The Way of Perfection and The Interior Castle, are classics of Spanish prose. She died in 1582 and was the first woman named a Doctor of the Church.

Teresa of Ávila is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: Spanish Carmelite nun who founded the convents of the Discalced Carmelites; a Catholic saint. Source: Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)