MEMORIAL OF SAINT TERESA OF JESUS (SAINT TERESA OF AVILA), VIRGIN AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH ~ FEAST DAY- OCTOBER 15TH: Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Teresa of Jesus (Saint Teresa of Avila), Virgin and Doctor of the Church. Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary and Saint Teresa of Jesus on this feast day, we humbly pray for God’s Divine Grace and Mercy upon us all. We pray for peace, love, and unity in our marriages, our families and our world. We pray for the poor, the needy and the most vulnerable. We pray for the sick and dying, especially those who are mentally and physically ill, headaches, heart diseases, those suffering from cancers and other terminal diseases. We pray for the souls in Purgatory and the repose of the souls of the faithful departed. We pray for all widows and widowers. We pray for Cemetery Workers. And we continue to pray for our Holy Father, the Bishops, the Clergy, for vocations to the priesthood and religious life, for the Church, for persecuted christians, for the conversion of sinners, and Christians all over the world…. Amen🙏
SAINT TERESA OF JESUS (SAINT TERESA OF AVILA), VIRGIN AND DOCTOR: St. Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582), also called Saint Teresa of Jesus, original name Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada, was born on March 28, 1515, Ávila, Spain to a large, devout, and prominent Catholic family. St. Teresa was one of twelve children in a faith-filled home. A Spanish nun, one of the great mystics and religious women of the Roman Catholic Church, and author of spiritual classics. At age seven she set out for Africa to die for Christ, she read the lives of the saints and was so inspired by the martyrs that she and her brother Rodrigo began walking south toward the Moors hoping to gain instant access to heaven by being martyred by the Moors; in this way, she said she could come to see God, but they were intercepted on their way by their uncle and returned home. After her uncle found them and returned them home, they built hermitages for themselves in the family garden. When Teresa was 14, her mother died, she was plunged into sorrow, the death causing her a profound grief that prompted her to embrace a deeper devotion to the Virgin Mary as her spiritual mother. Along with this good resolution, however, she also developed immoderate interests in reading popular fiction (consisting, at that time, mostly of medieval tales of knighthood) and caring for her own appearance. When she began to exhibit worldly vanities, her father placed her in a convent to be educated with other ladies of her social class. In 1533, at the age of eighteen she joined the Carmelite Order and chose Christ as her heavenly Spouse. For eighteen years she suffered physical pain and spiritual dryness. 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 St. John of the Cross opened the first monastery of the Primitive Rule at Duruelo, Spain. Assisted by St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa succeeded in establishing the Reform of the Discalced Carmelites, for both the brethren and the sisters of her Order. Before her death in 1582, thirty-two monasteries of the Reformed Rule had been established, among which seventeen were convents of nuns.
St. Teresa of Jesus, honored by the Church as the “seraphic virgin,” virgo seraphica, and reformer of the Carmelite Order, ranks first among women for wisdom and learning. She is called doctrix mystica, doctor of mystical theology; in a report to Pope Paul V the Roman Rota declared: “Teresa has been given to the Church by God as a teacher of the spiritual life. The mysteries of the inner mystical life which the holy Fathers propounded unsystematically and without orderly sequence, she has presented with unparalleled clarity.” Her writings are still the classic works on mysticism, and from her all later teachers have drawn, e.g., Francis de Sales, Alphonsus Liguori. Characteristic of her mysticism is the subjective-individualistic approach; there is little integration with the liturgy and social piety, and thus she reflects the spirit of the sixteenth and following centuries. Truly wonderful were the exterior and interior manifestations of her mystical union with God, especially during the last decade of her life. These graces reached a climax when her heart was transfixed (transverberatio cordis), an event that is commemorated in the Carmelite Order by a special feast on August 27. She practiced great devotion to the foster-father of Jesus, whose cult was greatly furthered throughout the Church through her efforts. St. Teresa’s health failed her for the last time while she was traveling through Salamanca in 1582. She accepted her dramatic final illness as God’s chosen means of calling her into his presence forever. “O my Lord, and my spouse, the desired hour is now come,” she stated. “The hour is at last come, wherein I shall pass out of this exile, and my soul shall enjoy in thy company what it hath so earnestly longed for.”
When dying she often repeated the words: “Lord, I am a daughter of the Church!” St. Teresa of Avila died on October 4 or 15, 1582 at Alba de Tormes, Spain at the age of 67. Her holy body rests upon the high altar of the Carmelite church in Alba, Spain; her heart with its mysterious wound is reserved in a precious reliquary on the Epistle side of the altar. She was canonized by Pope Gregory XV on March 22, 1622, along with three of her greatest contemporaries: St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Francis Xavier, and St. Philip Neri. St. Teresa received great gifts from God. She also wrote many books on Mystical Theology considered by Popes Gregory XV and Urban VII to be equal to those of a Doctor of the Church. Accordingly, on September 27, 1970, Pope Paul VI added her to the roll of the Doctors of the Church. St. Teresa is one of the first two woman Doctors of the Church, along with 14th century Dominican St. Catherine of Siena. St. Teresa’s writings, especially the Way of Perfection and The Interior Castle, have helped generations of believers. She’s the Patron Saint of sickness; against headaches; against heart disease; lacemakers; loss of parents; opposition of Church authorities; those in need of grace; religious; Congregation of the Sisters of the Divine Redeemer; those ridiculed for their piety; Spain; those named Teresa, Theresa, Teresita, Terry, Tessa, Teresina, and Tracy.
QUOTES OF SAINT TERESA OF JESUS:
☆ “Let nothing affright thee, Nothing dismay thee. All is passing, God ever remains. Patience obtains all. Whoever possesses God Cannot lack anything God alone suffices.”
☆ “Prayer is an act of love, words are not needed. Even if sickness distracts from thoughts, all that is needed is the will to love.”
☆ “Mental prayer, in my opinion, is nothing else, than an intimate sharing between friends. It means taking time frequently, to be alone with Him, who we know loves us. The important thing is, not to think much but to love much and so do, that which best stirs you to love. Love is not great delight but desire to please God in everything.”
☆ “A beginner, must look on himself, as one setting out to make a garden for his Lord’s pleasure, on most unfruitful soil which abounds in weeds. His Majesty roots up the weeds and will put in good plants instead. Let us reckon that this is already done, when the soul decides to practice prayer and has begun to do so.”
PRAYER: God, You raised up St. Teresa by Your Spirit so that she could manifest to the Church the way to perfection. Nourish us with the food of heaven, and fire us, like her, with a desire for holiness. Amen 🙏