Saint Teresa of Avila.

Saint Teresa of Ávila (real name Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada) was born on 28 March 1515 in Ávila, Spain, and died on 4 October 1582 in Alba de Tormes. Coming from a Jewish family, she became the most essential Spanish mystic and reformer of the Carmelite order. She was beatified by Pope Paul V on 24 April 1614 and canonized by Pope Gregory XV on 12 March 1622. Her feast day is celebrated on 15 October. On 29 September 1970, Pope Paul VI named St Teresa of Ávila the first woman to be recognized as a teacher of the Church. Today, there are four teachers of the Church: St Teresa of Ávila, St Hildegard of Bingen, St Catherine of Siena, and St Teresa of Lisieux.

The attributes of St Teresa of Ávila are the letters IHS, an angel with a fiery arrow piercing her heart, and a dove. She is the patron saint of Spain, Croatia, Mexico, the archbishopric of Ávila, the city of Alba de Tormes, and Naples. She is also the patron saint of all Carmelite communities.

Source: Wikimedia Commons
The parents of St. Teresa of Avila were the knight Alonso Sánchez de Cepeda and Beatriz d’Ávila y Ahumada; the latter’s parents were of Jewish origin. At the end of the 15th century in Spain, the Reconquista (the liberation of Spain from Moorish rule, which began in 711 and ended in 1492) was in full swing. A Catholic royal couple, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, succeeded in liberating Granada, in southern Spain, from Muslim rule. The defeat of the Muslims brought movement within the Spanish populations. Muslims and Jews who refused to accept Christianity gradually had to leave Spain, while the Spanish Inquisition closely monitored mainly Muslim and Jewish converts, many of whom had only converted to Catholicism in name.

However, the Catholic conversion of St. Teresa of Avila’s ancestors was sincere. Her mother, Beatriz d’Avila y Ahumada, raised her in Catholic piety. Teresa read the biographies of saints from a young age, and at the age of seven, she ran away from home with her brother Rodrigo, hoping to die as a martyr during the Christianisation of North Africa by the Moors. However, outside the city walls, the siblings were found by their uncle, who took them back home. Unable to become martyrs, the siblings built maids out of stones and played at home as monks and martyrs.

In 1531, Teresa introduced her father to the Augustinian convent in Avila for his upbringing and education. While in the monastery, Teresa read the letters of St. Jerome on the consecrated life and morals. In 1535, she decided to enter the Carmelite monastery in Avila, and in 1536 she received the religious order’s robe. That same year, she came across the book Alfabeto Espiritual (Spiritual Alphabet) by the Spanish Franciscan Francisco de Osuna, which would have a significant influence on her spiritual development (this book would later be recommended by the founder of the Jesuits, St. Ignatius of Loyola).

In 1537, Teresa fell seriously ill, suffering from headaches, chest cramps, and heart disease. The doctors could not help her. On 15 August 1537, she lost consciousness, and the doctors thought she was dead, so they had her buried. After four days, she recovered, but was partially paralysed for three years. Her physical condition did not improve until 1540; however, she continued to suffer mentally because she felt the horror of sin in everyone and was troubled by how many souls she could not help to achieve eternal salvation.

However, not everyone viewed St Teresa of Avila’s mortification positively. According to several strict Spanish theologians, she went beyond the usual measure of mortification. She even reached the point where she stopped meeting people because she could not concentrate on matters of prayer and meditation amid worldly concerns.

Her confessor, St Francisco Borgia, supported her in her efforts. In 1559, she admitted that apparitions of Our Lord Jesus Christ had appeared to her for approximately two years. During one of these ecstatic states, one of the seraphim appeared to her and pierced her heart with a red-hot golden spear, causing her spiritual and physical pain, but she was glad to receive it. This event also inspired her throughout her life; through suffering, she wanted to get closer to Christ.

She later commented on this event herself in the following words: “I saw that he held a golden spear in his hand, at the tip of which I saw a small fire. He stabbed me in the heart and seemed to pierce me inside too. When he withdrew, he left me in the fire of God’s great love. I felt a great, yet sweet and intense, pain… Lord, let me suffer or die?”

Words from the book of St Theresa of Avila inspired the important Baroque artist Gianlorenzo Bernini, who subsequently created the statue ‘Ecstasy of St Teresa of Avila’.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, ‘Ecstasy of St. Teresa of Avila’
St. Teresa of Avila is considered to be one of the greatest Catholic mystics. However, her mysticism and mystical ideas are very demanding and far removed from the liberal and modernist ideas of bishops, priests, and believers, who perceive faith as an all-embracing love that guides these unfortunate people to the point that they even regard the administration of the Eucharist as a gift.

In her mysticism, St. Teresa of Avila focused on how the human soul can rise to God. The first degree of the soul’s approach to God is pious contemplation and concentration, primarily on Christ’s suffering and forms of repentance, which the soul must practice, drawing closer to God.

The second level is silent prayer, in which the human will is lost in God’s will through a supernatural state given by God. The third degree has a partially ecstatic character: the soul sinks into God’s love. The fourth degree is entirely ecstatic. Ecstasy can last up to half an hour, and a person may find themselves in tears after waking up from it. According to witnesses living near St Teresa of Ávila, she levitated during the fourth ecstatic stage.

In 1560, she had a vision of hell. This filled her with terror, and she wrote the following about her vision of hell:

‘One day, I was suddenly transported to Hell, without knowing how. It was a very short vision, but it seems to me that I will not be able to forget it, even if I live for many years.” The entrance appeared to be a long, narrow, underground passageway, like a dark, low furnace; the floor was smelly mud, full of disgusting reptiles. In the wall behind, a cavity had been dug out, like a niche, and I felt myself being closed in it. The suffering I endured is beyond human comprehension and cannot be conveyed in words. I felt an indescribable fire in my soul, while unbearable pain tormented my body. I have experienced many of the most difficult things that a person can suffer, according to doctors, because all my nerves stiffened and I was completely twisted. And that’s not to mention the various other sufferings caused to me by an evil spirit. These can be no less compared to them, especially when I consider that the torment should have been endless and without relief. However, even that was nothing compared to the mortal struggle of the soul. The oppression, anxiety and deep sadness were overwhelming, and the pain was so vivid and desperate that I don’t know how to express it. I was left devastated by fear, and even now, almost six years later, I am still stuck on the spot with fear. Since then, as I say, no suffering seems easy to me compared to that one moment. From this experience, I have been left with a profound sense of sorrow at the loss of so many souls…“