Teresa Sanchez Cepeda Davila y Ahumada, born at Avila, Old Castile, 28 March, 1515; died at Alba de Tormes, 4 Oct., 1582.
The third child of Don Alonso Sanchez de Cepeda by his second wife,
Doña Beatriz Davila y Ahumada, who died when the saint was in her
fourteenth year, Teresa was brought up by her saintly father, a lover of
serious books, and a tender and pious mother. After her death and the
marriage of her eldest sister, Teresa was sent for her education to the
Augustinian nuns at Avila, but owing to illness she left at the end of
eighteen months, and for some years remained with her father and
occasionally with other relatives, notably an uncle who made her
acquainted with the Letters of St. Jerome, which determined her to adopt
the religious life, not so much through any attraction towards it, as
through a desire of choosing the safest course. Unable to obtain her
father’s consent she left his house unknown to him on Nov., 1535, to
enter the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation at Avila, which then
counted 140 nuns. The wrench from her family caused her a pain which she
ever afterwards compared to that of death. However, her father at once
yielded and Teresa took the habit.
After her profession in the following year she became very seriously
ill, and underwent a prolonged cure and such unskillful medical
treatment that she was reduced to a most pitiful state, and even after
partial recovery through the intercession of St. Joseph, her health
remained permanently impaired. During these years of suffering she began
the practice of mental prayer, but fearing that her conversations with
some world-minded relatives, frequent visitors at the convent, rendered
her unworthy of the graces God bestowed on her in prayer, discontinued
it, until she came under the influence, first of the Dominicans, and
afterwards of the Jesuits.
Meanwhile God had begun to visit her with “intellectual visions and
locutions”, that is manifestations in which the exterior senses were in
no way affected, the things seen and the words heard being directly
impressed upon her mind, and giving her wonderful strength in trials,
reprimanding her for unfaithfulness, and consoling her in trouble.
Unable to reconcile such graces with her shortcomings, which her
delicate conscience represented as grievous faults, she had recourse not
only to the most spiritual confessors she could find, but also to some
saintly laymen, who, never suspecting that the account she gave them of
her sins was greatly exaggerated, believed these manifestations to be
the work of the evil spirit. The more she endeavoured to resist them the
more powerfully did God work in her soul. The whole city of Avila was
troubled by the reports of the visions of this nun. It was reserved to
St. Francis Borgia and St. Peter of Alcantara, and afterwards to a
number of Dominicans (particularly Pedro Ibañez and Domingo Bañez),
Jesuits, and other religious and secular priests, to discern the work of
God and to guide her on a safe road.
The account of her spiritual life contained in the
“Life written by herself” (completed in 1565, an earlier version being lost), in the
“Relations”, and in the
“Interior Castle”, forms one of the most remarkable spiritual biographies with which only the “
Confessions of St. Augustine”
can bear comparison. To this period belong also such extraordinary
manifestations as the piercing or transverberation of her heart, the
spiritual espousals, and the mystical marriage. A vision of the place
destined for her in hell in case she should have been unfaithful to
grace, determined her to seek a more perfect life. After many troubles
and much opposition St. Teresa founded the convent of Discalced
Carmelite Nuns of the Primitive Rule of St. Joseph at Avila (24 Aug.,
1562), and after six months obtained permission to take up her residence
there.
Four years later she received the visit of the General of the
Carmelites, John-Baptist Rubeo (Rossi), who not only approved of what
she had done but granted leave for the
foundation
of other convents of friars as well as nuns. In rapid succession she
established her nuns at Medina del Campo (1567), Malagon and Valladolid
(1568), Toledo and Pastrana (1569), Salamanca (1570), Alba de Tormes
(1571), Segovia (1574), Veas and Seville (1575), and Caravaca (1576). In
the
“Book of Foundations”
she tells the story of these convents, nearly all of which were
established in spite of violent opposition but with manifest assistance
from above. Everywhere she found souls generous enough to embrace the
austerities of the primitive rule of Carmel. Having made the
acquaintance of Antonio de Heredia, prior of Medina, and St. John of the
Cross (q.v.), she established her reform among the friars (28 Nov.,
1568), the first convents being those of Duruelo (1568), Pastrana
(1569), Mancera, and Alcalá de Henares (1570).
A new epoch began with the entrance into religion of Jerome Gratian,
inasmuch as this remarkable man was almost immediately entrusted by the
nuncio with the authority of visitor Apostolic of the Carmelite friars
and nuns of the old observance in Andalusia, and as such considered
himself entitled to overrule the various restrictions insisted upon by
the general and the general chapter.
On
the death of the nuncio and the arrival of his successor a fearful
storm burst over St. Teresa and her work, lasting four years and
threatening to annihilate the nascent reform. The incidents of this
persecution are best described in her
letters.
The storm at length passed, and the province of Discalced Carmelites,
with the support of Philip II, was approved and canonically established
on 22 June, 1580. St. Teresa, old and broken in health, made further
foundations at Villnuava de la Jara and Palencia (1580), Soria (1581),
Granada (through her assiatant the Venerable Anne of Jesus), and at
Burgos (1582). She left this latter place at the end of July, and,
stopping at Palencia, Valldolid, and Medina del Campo, reached Alba de
Torres in September, suffering intensely. Soon she took to her bed and
passed away on 4 Oct., 1582, the following day, owing to the reform of
the calendar, being reckoned as 15 October. After some years her body
was transferred to Avila, but later on reconveyed to Alba, where it is
still preserved incorrupt. Her heart, too, showing the marks of the
Transverberation, is exposed there to the veneration of the faithful.
She was beatified in 1614, and canonized in 1622 by Gregory XV, the
feast being fixed on 15 October.
St. Teresa’s position among writers on mystical theology is unique.
In all her writings on this subject she deals with her personal
experiences, which a deep insight and analytical gifts enabled her to
explain clearly. The Thomistic substratum may be traced to the influence
of her confessors and directors, many of whom belonged to the Dominican
Order. She herself had no pretension to found a school in the accepted
sense of the term, and there is no vestige in her writings of any
influence of the Aeropagite, the Patristic, or the Scholastic Mystical
schools, as represented among others, by the German Dominican Mystics.
She is intensely personal, her system going exactly as far as her
experiences, but not a step further.
BENEDICT ZIMMERMAN (Catholic Encyclopedia)
Luke
was not a Jew but a Gentile, and thought to have been a Greco-Syrian,
probably born in Antioch. Though one of the four Gospel writers – known
as the Evangelists – he was not one of Christ's Twelve Apostles. Whether
he converted to Christianity from Judaism or paganism is not certain.
Ignatius,
born in Syria, converted to Christianity at a young age, and was
thought to be a disciple of St. John the Evangelist. He is one of the
five Apostolic Church Fathers, who were instructed personally by
Christ’s apostles.
He
was martyred in Rome on the last day of the public games, December 20
in the year 107. Condemned to be devoured by lions in the public arena,
his prayer before his death was: “I am God's wheat, and I am to be
ground by the teeth of wild beasts, so that I may become the pure bread
of Christ. Indeed the lions devoured all of his body leaving only the
large bones.