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Teresa of Ávila

Teresa of Ávila, OCD (Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda Dávila y Ahumada; 28 March 1515 – 4 or 15 October 1582),[a] also called Saint Teresa of Jesus, was a Carmelite nun and prominent Spanish mystic and religious reformer.

For other people with a similar name, see List of saints named Teresa.

Saint

Teresa of Ávila

OCD

Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda Dávila y Ahumada
28 March 1515
Ávila or Gotarrendura, Crown of Castile

4 October 1582(1582-10-04) (aged 67)
Alba de Tormes, Crown of Castile

24 April 1614, Rome by Pope Paul V

12 March 1622, Rome by Pope Gregory XV

Convent of the Annunciation, Alba de Tormes, Spain

15 October

Carmelite religious habit, biretta, quill, dove (as an attribute of the Holy Spirit), heart with a christogram

Spain, sick people, people in religious orders, chess, people ridiculed for their piety, lacemakers, Požega, Croatia, Talisay City, Cebu, Philippines, Malalag, Davao del Sur, Philippines

Her reforms met with determined opposition and interest from the Spanish Inquisition, but no charges were laid against her. Her order split as a result.

Catholic Reformation

Christian mysticism

Theology

Mental prayer, Prayer of Quiet

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Active during the Counter-Reformation, Teresa became the central figure of a movement of spiritual and monastic renewal, reforming the Carmelite Orders of both women and men.[2] The movement was later joined by the younger Carmelite friar and mystic Saint John of the Cross, with whom she established the Discalced Carmelites. A formal papal decree adopting the split from the old order was issued in 1580.[web 3]


Her autobiography, The Life of Teresa of Jesus, and her books, The Interior Castle and The Way of Perfection, are prominent works on Christian mysticism and Christian meditation practice. In her autobiography, written as a defense of her ecstatic mystical experiences, she discerns four stages in the ascent of the soul to God: mental prayer and meditation; the prayer of quiet; absorption-in-God; ecstatic consciousness. The Interior Castle, written as a spiritual guide for her Carmelite sisters, uses the illustration of seven mansions within the castle of the soul to describe the different states one's soul can be in during life.


Forty years after her death, in 1622, Teresa was canonized by Pope Gregory XV. On 27 September 1970 Pope Paul VI proclaimed Teresa the first female Doctor of the Church in recognition of her centuries-long spiritual legacy to Catholicism.[3][web 4]

Biography[edit]

Early life[edit]

Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda Dávila y Ahumada was born on 28 March 1515.[4] Her birthplace was either Ávila or Gotarrendura.[5] Her paternal grandfather, Juan Sánchez de Toledo, was a marrano or converso, a Jew forced to convert to Christianity or emigrate. When Teresa's father was a child, Juan was condemned by the Spanish Inquisition for allegedly returning to Judaism, but he was later able to assume a Catholic identity.[6] Her father, Alonso Sánchez de Cepeda, was a successful wool merchant and one of the wealthiest men in Ávila. He bought a knighthood and assimilated successfully into Christian society.

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The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus ... Written by herself. Translated from the Spanish by D. Lewis, 1870. London: Burns, Oates, & Co

The Autobiography, written before 1567, under the direction of her confessor, Fr. Pedro Ibáñez, 1882

The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila by herself. J. M. Cohen, 1957. Penguin Classics

Life of St. Teresa of Jesus. Translated by Benedict Zimmerman, 1997. Tan Books,  978-0-89555-603-5

ISBN

The Life of Teresa of Jesus: The Autobiography of Teresa of Avila. Translated by E. Allison Peers, 1991. Doubleday,  978-0-385-01109-9

ISBN

The Book of Her Life, translated, with notes, by Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD and Otilio Rodriguez, OCD, 2008. Introduction by Jodi Bilinkoff. Indianapolis/Cambridge: , ISBN 978-0-87220-907-7

Hackett Publishing Company

The Book of My Life. Mirabai Starr, 2008. Boston, Massachusetts: Shambhala Publications,  978-1-59030-573-7

ISBN

The first, Devotion of the Heart, consists of and meditation. It means the withdrawal of the soul from without, penitence and especially the devout meditation on the passion of Christ (Autobiography 11.20).

mental prayer

The second, Devotion of Peace, is where human will is surrendered to God. This occurs by virtue of an uplifted awareness granted by God, while other faculties, such as memory, reason, and imagination, are not yet safe from worldly distraction. Although a partial distraction can happen, due to outer activity such as repetition of prayers or writing down spiritual things, the prevailing state is one of quietude (Autobiography 14.1).

The third, Devotion of Union, concerns the absorption-in-God. It is not only a heightened, but essentially, an state. At this level, reason is also surrendered to God, and only the memory and imagination are left to ramble. This state is characterized by a blissful peace, a sweet slumber of at least the higher soul faculties, that is a consciousness of being enraptured by the love of God.

ecstatic

The fourth, Devotion of Ecstasy, is where the consciousness of being in the body disappears. Sensory faculties cease to operate. Memory and imagination also become absorbed in God, as though intoxicated. Body and spirit dwell in the throes of exquisite pain, alternating between a fearful fiery glow, in complete unconscious helplessness, and periods of apparent strangulation. Sometimes such ecstatic transports literally cause the body to be lifted into space. This state may last as long as half an hour and tends to be followed by relaxation of a few hours of swoon-like weakness, attended by the absence of all faculties while in union with God. The subject awakens from this trance state in tears. It may be regarded as the culmination of mystical experience. Indeed, Teresa was said to have been observed levitating during Mass on more than one occasion.[44]

[44]

singles out Teresa as a woman who truly lived life for herself (and perhaps the only woman to do so) in her book The Second Sex.[73]

Simone de Beauvoir

She is mentioned prominently in 's novel Poison.[74] The main character, Francisca De Luarca, is fascinated by her life.

Kathryn Harrison

in End Zone depicted Teresa as a saint who eats from a human skull to remind herself of final things.

Don DeLillo

was strongly inspired by El Castillo Interior when he wrote his novel Fourth Mansions. Quotations from St. Teresa's work are frequently used as chapter headings.[75]

R. A. Lafferty

prominently features Saint Teresa of Ávila in his metaphysical novel The Baphomet.[76]

Pierre Klossowski

compared Dorothea Brooke to St. Teresa in Middlemarch (1871–1872) and wrote briefly about the life and works of St. Teresa in the "Prelude" to the novel.[77]

George Eliot

took Saint Teresa as the inspiration for much of the characterisation of the heroine Tess (Teresa) Durbeyfield, in Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), most notably the scene in which she lies in a field and senses her soul ecstatically above her.[78]

Thomas Hardy

The contemporary poet features Saint Teresa in the poem Breakdancing in her volume The End of Beauty.[79]

Jorie Graham

's novel Sister Teresa, while not strictly hagiographical, is based upon Teresa's life.[web 18]

Bárbara Mujica

's 1999 novel Pilgrim features Saint Teresa as a minor character.[80]

Timothy Findley

wrote a double biography contrasting the two Carmelites Teresa of Avila and Thérèse of Lisieux, The Eagle and the Dove, re-issued in 2018.[81]

Vita Sackville-West

Carolyn A. Greene. Castles in the Sand fiction with cited sources about Teresa of Avila Lighthouse Trails Publishing, 2009.  978-0-9791315-4-7

ISBN

Jean Abiven. 15 Days of Prayer with Saint Teresa of Avila, New City Press, 2011.  978-1-56548-366-8

ISBN

Gould Levine, Linda; Engelson Marson, Ellen; Feiman Waldman, Gloria, eds. (1993). . Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-31326-823-6.

Spanish Women Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Source Book

Bárbara Mujica, Teresa de Ávila: Lettered Woman, (Nashville, Vanderbilt University Press, 2009).

E. Rhodes, "Teresa de Jesus's Book and the Reform of the Religious Man in Sixteenth Century Spain," in Laurence Lux-Sterritt and Carmen Mangion (eds), Gender, Catholicism and Spirituality: Women and the Roman Catholic Church in Britain and Europe, 1200–1900 (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011),

John Thomas, "Ecstasy, art & the body. St. Teresa of Avila's 'Transverberation', and its depiction in the sculpture of Gianlorenzo Bernini" in John Thomas, Happiness, Truth & Holy Images. Essays of Popular Theology and Religion & Art (Wolverhampton, Twin Books, 2019), pp. 12–16.

John Thomas, "Architectural image and via mystica. St. Teresa's Las Moradas", in John Thomas, Happiness, Truth & Holy Images. Essays of Popular Theology and Religion & Art (Wolverhampton, Twin Books, 2019), pp. 39–48.

(2004). Teresa of Avila: An Extraordinary Life. Katonah, New York: BlueBridge. ISBN 978-0-974-24052-7.

Du Boulay, Shirley

. Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

"Works of St. Teresa of Avila (Online)"

held at Roehampton University in 2015 on the 500th anniversary of Teresa's birth

Teresa 500: Videos of a conference

Butler's Lives of the Saints

"St. Teresa, Virgin"

Founder Statue in St Peter's Basilica

Biography Online: Saint Teresa of Avila

Patron Saints: Saint Teresa of Avila

Books written by Saint Teresa of Avila, including Saint John of the Cross

at Project Gutenberg

Works by Teresa of Ávila

at Internet Archive

Works by or about Teresa of Ávila

at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)

Works by Teresa of Ávila

Archived 28 November 2007 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)

Basilica of Saint Teresa in Alba de Tormes

on YouTube (in Spanish)

Alba de Tormes, sepulcro de Santa Teresa – Tomb of Saint Teresa

Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, of The Order of Our Lady of Carmel

Way of Perfection

Interior Castle or The Mansions

Convent of St Teresa in Avila

Poems of Saint Teresa

1900, by Alexander Whyte, from Project Gutenberg

Santa Teresa: an Appreciation

Colonnade Statue St Peter's Square

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