Saint Teresa of Ávila

Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada was born in Ávila, Spain, on March 28, 1515. As a girl she loved the lives of the saints, and in 1535 she entered the Carmelite convent of the Incarnation in Ávila. For years she struggled with illness and a divided heart, until in 1554, before an image of the wounded Christ, she experienced a deep conversion.

In 1562 she founded the small convent of Saint Joseph in Ávila, the first of the Discalced Carmelites, returning to a life of poverty, enclosure and prayer. Despite opposition, she traveled across Spain and founded seventeen convents, and with Saint John of the Cross she extended the reform to the friars. She wrote The Life, The Way of Perfection and The Interior Castle, classics of the spiritual life. She died at Alba de Tormes in October 1582. Gregory XV canonized her in 1622, and in 1970 Paul VI made her the first woman Doctor of the Church.

In Ávila the Fiestas de Santa Teresa fill the city with processions, music and the sweet yemas de Santa Teresa. Her body rests at Alba de Tormes, a major place of pilgrimage.

Carmelites everywhere celebrate her with solemn Masses, and many people pray her famous poem, "Let nothing disturb you... God alone suffices."