Given the recent feast day of St. Teresa of Avila, I thought I’d make a little post about how great she is!
When I was studying in Castile (which is an affected and archaic way of saying the part of Spain just north of Madrid), which is the saint’s home and area of work, I was moved by the presence of Discalced Carmelite nunneries in every town. She was born and entered the convent in Avila, where she began to receive revelations and locutions from Our Lord, Jesus Christ (biretta tip). So, having read the lives of the early Carmelite hermits, she decided, with some willing sisters, to return to the primitive rule in the centre of Avila. And so (forgive me for starting a sentence with the word “and” but this a blog, if you want grammar read Jane Austen) began her years of foundations and growth in love and prayer.
There are some funny stories about her locutions, for example, once she met a child on the stairs of her convent, she introduced herself “I’m Sr. Teresa of Jesus”, the reply came “I’m Jesus, of Sr. Teresa”.
For further reading of this glorious saint (a women libber, one of the first women doctors of the Church), read her “Interior Castle”, or the book which the Archbishop of Canterbury wrote about her.
“Keep me from sour faced saints” she once wrote. AMEN!
When I was studying in Castile (which is an affected and archaic way of saying the part of Spain just north of Madrid), which is the saint’s home and area of work, I was moved by the presence of Discalced Carmelite nunneries in every town. She was born and entered the convent in Avila, where she began to receive revelations and locutions from Our Lord, Jesus Christ (biretta tip). So, having read the lives of the early Carmelite hermits, she decided, with some willing sisters, to return to the primitive rule in the centre of Avila. And so (forgive me for starting a sentence with the word “and” but this a blog, if you want grammar read Jane Austen) began her years of foundations and growth in love and prayer.
There are some funny stories about her locutions, for example, once she met a child on the stairs of her convent, she introduced herself “I’m Sr. Teresa of Jesus”, the reply came “I’m Jesus, of Sr. Teresa”.
For further reading of this glorious saint (a women libber, one of the first women doctors of the Church), read her “Interior Castle”, or the book which the Archbishop of Canterbury wrote about her.
“Keep me from sour faced saints” she once wrote. AMEN!
No comments:
Post a Comment