In the city of Ávila, in northern Spain, St. Teresa of Jesus was born in 1515.
Newsroom (03/02/2026 11:00, Gaudium Press) Her parents, who belonged to distinguished families in Castile, gave her a thorough education. As a child, a priest asked her about her ancestry, and she replied: ‘It is enough for me to be a daughter of the Catholic Church; I would be more distressed to have committed a venial sin than to be a descendant of the poorest and most vile men in the world.’
At the age of seven, she and her little brother fled the palace where they lived to go to Africa to fight the Moors, die and reach Heaven. Shortly afterwards, they were found by an uncle who brought them back.
In her early youth, she entered the Carmelite monastery of Our Lady of the Incarnation in Ávila, where the nuns lived in relaxation: they could go out and receive visitors at will, they did not have to renounce their possessions, etc.
She herself was influenced by this environment and fell spiritually. Then something happened that marked her life.
She was taken to hell and placed in a cramped, dark oven. The floor was covered with mud exuding an unbearable smell, in which poisonous reptiles crawled. She felt herself burning and being cut into a thousand pieces. She suffered terrible pains and, worse, thought they were eternal…
After some time, this punishment for her laziness ceased.
Realizing that decadence was widespread in convents, moved by divine grace, she decided to undertake the reform of the female branch of the Carmelite Order.
Gathering four nuns, she founded a small convent in Ávila and gave it the title of St. Joseph, to whom she was very devoted. The Carmelites of the monastery of the Incarnation revolted and mobilised the entire city to have the new convent closed down. But, endowed with great sagacity, the Saint had previously obtained the approval of the diocesan bishop for her undertaking, and thus the turmoil subsided.
One of the most vigorous driving forces of the Counter-Reformation
Outraged by the spread of Protestantism, she begged Our Lord to send apostles to combat heresy.
states that she understood that she had to move ‘from mediocrity to fervour in order to enable preachers, Catholic doctors, and Catholic warriors to defeat the Protestants.’ From this idea arose the reform of Carmel.
‘This reform had an extraordinary effect on the imponderables of all Christendom. A movement of fervour broke out around the Carmelites, which was one of the most vigorous engines of the Counter-Reformation, that is, of the doctrinal and tendential struggle against Protestantism and its derivative sects.
Salvation of Catholic France
God favoured her with many visions and revelations which, on the advice of her confessors and teachers, she wrote down in detail.
At the convent of St. Joseph, she wrote the work ‘The Way of Perfection,’ in the first chapter of which she explains the reasons that led her to establish a strict observance of the Carmelite rule in the newly founded religious house.
Catholic France was so impressed by these reasons that it owed ‘its salvation to St. Teresa.’ Faced with the disturbances caused by heretics in that country, and as the ‘unfortunate sect’ of Protestants grew stronger day by day, she begged God to remedy such a great evil. “It seemed to me that I would give a thousand lives to save a single one of the numerous souls that were lost in that kingdom [of France].
Personality similar to a cherub
As for her visions, revelations, and ecstasies, various clergymen said they were the work of the devil. But St. Francis Borgia and St. Peter of Alcantara declared that they came from Our Lord.
In reality, they indicate ‘a special communion with God, in which one perceives the colossal radiance of grace, giving us the impression of an extraordinary personality that truly dazzles us […] to the point that we see in her a kind of cherub, with all the eminences of a purely spiritual being’.
Venerated by Philip II and the Duke of Alba
She became well known throughout Spain. King Philip II wrote her several letters and, in one of them, asked her to come to the royal palace in Madrid to meet her and ask her questions. And the heroic Duke of Alba appreciated the Saint’s autobiography and took it with him on military campaigns.
The Apostolic Visitor appointed by St. Pius V ordered her to become prioress of the Monastery of the Incarnation, which she had left several years earlier. There were 130 nuns living there who protested against the new prioress.
With words full of kindness and wisdom, she calmed them down; she sent away the boarders, made visits by worldly people more difficult, and fought against the lukewarmness that existed there.
A man of great importance in Ávila came to speak to her and harshly criticized the rules introduced in the monastery. The Saint firmly told him that if he ever set foot in that house again, she would ‘have the king cut off his head’.
Leading a contemplative life, she also devoted herself to intense work to expand her ministry. She founded 17 convents for women and, with the help of St. John of the Cross, promoted the establishment of several others for men.
Among the many works she wrote, ‘The Interior Castle’ stands out, in which she narrates the seven mansions through which souls thirsting for holiness journey.
A luminous, beautiful and rejuvenated face
After founding the convent in Burgos in 1582, the Duchess of Alba asked her to visit her at her castle in Alba de Tormes; the Duke, her husband, was in Lisbon on a military expedition.
She went there, but settled in the Carmelite convent in the city, where she fell ill. The Duchess visited her frequently and served her with dedication.
Having received the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick, she prayed the passage from the Miserere psalm: ‘My God, do not reject a contrite and humbled heart’ and repeated it until she lost the power of speech.
On 4 October 1582 – the day Gregory XII reformed the calendar – she gave her soul to God and a white dove flew out of her mouth. Her face became luminous, beautiful and rejuvenated. Her body – which remains incorrupt to this day – exuded a sweet perfume, as did the objects she had touched.
St. Teresa was gifted with ‘gently juxtaposed qualities, with something harmoniously dissonant between action and contemplation, haughtiness and mercy, determination and kindness, which denote and constitute an immense personality. Indeed, she was one of the greatest female figures in all of history.’
By Paulo Francisco Martos
Compiled by Sandra Chisholm with Files From ‘Notions of Church History’
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