Saint Teresa of the Andes (Teresa de Jesús de los Andes)

Juana Fernández Solar was born on July 13, 1900, in Santiago, Chile, the fourth of six children of Miguel Fernández and Lucía Solar. Lively, affectionate and athletic, she loved her family, the countryside and riding horses. From her First Communion in 1910 she felt Jesus calling her, and after reading the writings of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity she decided to become a Carmelite. Her many letters and her diary show a young woman deeply in love with God.

On May 7, 1919, she entered the small Discalced Carmelite monastery in Los Andes, taking the name Teresa of Jesus. Less than a year later she fell gravely ill with typhus, made her religious vows on her deathbed, and died on April 12, 1920, at nineteen. Saint John Paul II beatified her in Santiago in 1987 and canonized her in Rome on March 21, 1993, the first Chilean saint. Chile and the Carmelites celebrate her on July 13, her birthday; she is also remembered on April 12, the day of her death.

Her remains rest in the Sanctuary of Saint Teresa of the Andes in Auco, near Los Andes, which welcomes many thousands of pilgrims each year. Every year tens of thousands of young Chileans walk through the night in a great youth pilgrimage to her sanctuary.

Chilean young people see her as a friend: her letters about prayer, friendship and joy are still widely read, and many ask her help in discerning their vocation.