St. Teresa of Ávila was the first of only four women to have been named doctor of the church. Her ascetic doctrine and Carmelite reforms shaped Roman Catholic contemplative life, and her writings on the Christian soul’s journey to God are considered masterpieces.
She was canonized by Pope Gregory XV in 1622. In 1970, Pope Paul VI elevated her to a Doctor of the Church. The title is given to those who have made outstanding contributions to theology and the transmission of faith. He recognized St. Teresa’s spiritual legacy to Catholicism. Pope Francis has emphasized her importance, especially in highlighting the role of women in the Church and society.
St. Teresa was a Spanish nun, one of the great mystics and religious women of the Roman Catholic Church, and an author of spiritual classics. She was the originator of the Carmelite Reform, which restored and emphasized the austerity and contemplative character of Carmelite life. She is also considered a co-patron of Spain.
Born March 28, 1515, Ávila, Spain
Died October 4, 1582, Alba de Tormes
Feast day October 15
St. Teresa of Avila (also known as St. Teresa of Jesus)
Her mother died in 1529, and, despite her father’s opposition, Teresa entered, probably in 1535, the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation at Ávila, Spain. Within two years her health collapsed, and she was disabled for three years, during which time she developed a love for mental prayer. After her recovery, however, she stopped praying. She continued for 15 years in a state divided between a worldly and a divine spirit, until, in 1555, she experienced a religious awakening.
In 1558 Teresa began to consider the restoration of Carmelite life to its original observance of austerity, which had relaxed in the 14th and 15th centuries. Her reform required utter withdrawal so that the nuns could meditate on divine law and, through a prayerful life of penance, exercise what she termed “our vocation of reparation” for the sins of humankind. In 1562, with Pope Pius IV’s authorization, she opened the first convent (St. Joseph’s) of the Carmelite Reform. A storm of hostility came from municipal and religious personages, especially because the convent existed without endowment, but she staunchly insisted on poverty and subsistence only through public alms.
John Baptist Rossi, the Carmelite prior general from Rome, went to Ávila in 1567 and approved the reform, directing Teresa to found more convents and to establish monasteries. In the same year, while at Medina del Campo, Spain, she met a young Carmelite priest, Juan de Yepes (later St. John of the Cross, the poet and mystic), who she realized could initiate the Carmelite Reform for men. A year later Juan opened the first monastery of the Primitive Rule at Duruelo, Spain.
Despite frail health and great difficulties, Teresa spent the rest of her life establishing and nurturing 16 more convents throughout Spain. In 1575, while she was at the Sevilla (Seville) convent, a jurisdictional dispute erupted between the friars of the restored Primitive Rule, known as the Discalced (or “Unshod”) Carmelites, and the observants of the Mitigated Rule, the Calced (or “Shod”) Carmelites. Although she had foreseen the trouble and endeavored to prevent it, her attempts failed. The Carmelite general, to whom she had been misrepresented, ordered her to retire to a convent in Castile and to cease founding additional convents; Juan was subsequently imprisoned at Toledo in 1577.
In 1579, largely through the efforts of King Philip II of Spain, who knew and admired Teresa, a solution was effected whereby the Carmelites of the Primitive Rule were given independent jurisdiction, confirmed in 1580 by a rescript of Pope Gregory XIII. Teresa, broken in health, was then directed to resume the reform. In journeys that covered hundreds of miles, she made exhausting missions and was fatally stricken en route to Ávila from Burgos, Spain.
Teresa’s ascetic doctrine has been accepted as the classical exposition of the contemplative life, and her spiritual writings are among the most widely read. Her Life of the Mother Teresa of Jesus (1611) is autobiographical; the Book of the Foundations (1610) describes the establishment of her convents. Her recognized written masterpieces on the progress of the Christian soul toward God through prayer and contemplation are The Way of Perfection (1583), The Interior Castle (1588), Spiritual Relations, Exclamations of the Soul to God (1588), and Conceptions on the Love of God. Of her poems, 31 are extant; of her letters, 458 are extant.