St Teresa of Jesus, Doctor of the Church and Carmelite nun. Born at Avila (Spain) in 1515; died at Alba de Tormes in 1582. Left her aristocratic family for the Carmelite monastery in Avila at the age of twenty, but only after two decades of dryness in prayer felt an inner conversion to Christ.
Honoured as a spiritual writer and mystic who experienced and comprehensively described the life of prayer. Honoured as a strong, practical reformer who restored the strict Carmelite observance of poverty, solitude, and prayer.
Her life and her achievements have earned her many titles – reformer, writer, foundress, doctor of the church and saint – and these, together with her warm human personality, her wit and her single-minded courage, have made her one of the great women of all ages.
We pray for the Carmelite family in Ireland and worldwide and in a special way for all named Teresa.
St Teresa of Avila intercede for all.