Teresa of Ávila was born Teresa Ali Fatim Corella Sanchez de Capeda y Ahumada in Ávila, Spain in 1515.
Her parents’ marriage was turbulent. Teresa and her mother liked romance novels but her father worried that Teresa was becoming vain as a result. When she was 16 he sent her to a convent. At first she hated it, but when it came to making a choice between marriage and the religious life, she chose the Carmelite convent.
When Teresa fell ill with malaria she used it as an excuse to stop praying. A priest persuaded her to return to her prayer, but she still found it difficult.
“I was more anxious for the hour of prayer to be over than I was to remain there. I don’t know what heavy penance I would not have gladly undertaken rather than practise prayer,” she wrote.
Levitating during prayer
But she later began to feel God’s presence, have visions of Jesus, and occasionally she would levitate during prayer. Some even suggested her visions were inspired by the Devil – one of her confessors even instructed that she make an obscene gesture whenever she had a vision of Christ.
The convent where Teresa lived was not always a prayerful or holy place, as many women were there simply because they had never married. So at the age of 43 Teresa resolved to found her own convent, to be known as St Joseph’s.
Shunned in public
Aged 51, Teresa resolved to spread her reform movement, attracting much anger. When her former convent voted her in as prioress, the leader of the Carmelite order excommunicated the nuns involved. Teresa was often shunned in public but she saw this as good publicity for her convent.
She died on October 4, 1582, aged 67. She is the founder of the Discalced (or barefoot) Carmelites. She is a Doctor of the Church and the patron saint of headache sufferers.
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