Teresa of Ávila

Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda Dávila y Ahumada was born at Ávila in Castile on 28 March 1515, daughter of the second marriage of Alonso Sánchez de Cepeda, a prosperous merchant of converso ancestry, and Beatriz de Ahumada. Her childhood among brothers and cousins was happy; she was captivated by the lives of the saints and by chivalric romances. At about seven she set out with her brother Rodrigo to seek martyrdom among the Moors, only to be brought home by an uncle. After her mother's death she turned more deeply to the Virgin Mary as spiritual mother and was sent to the Augustinian monastery of Our Lady of Grace in Ávila, where she experienced an early existential crisis.

A serious illness returned her to her father's house. She witnessed the departure of her beloved brother Rodrigo for the Spanish colonies overseas. In 1536 she resolved to enter the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation at Ávila despite her father's opposition; she fled home, was received by the nuns, and made profession on 3 November 1537. Her health soon collapsed again. Judged beyond hope, she was brought back to the convent where the sisters prepared her funeral; inexplicably she recovered within days, attributing the cure in part to the intercession of Saint Joseph. During convalescence she formed many friendships, yet came to see them as distractions from prayer. A second conversion followed when her eyes fell upon an image of the wounded Christ: she threw herself at His feet in tears and begged strength never to offend Him again.

Visions and ecstasies marked the most mysterious chapter of her life. In her Autobiography, written under obedience, and in other works she described the stages of divine manifestation—visual and auditory. She was seen to levitate, fall into swoons, and lie as if dead. Spiritual growth poured into her mystical writings, among the clearest and most poetic ever composed. Some confessors feared diabolical illusion, yet she was sustained by the Jesuit Francis Borgia and the Franciscan Peter of Alcántara, who dispelled the doubts of her accusers. On the feast of Saint Peter in 1559 she became convinced that Christ presented Himself to her in bodily form. In another vision a seraph drove a fiery golden lance repeatedly through her heart, leaving her aflame with love of God—the famous transverberation later immortalized by Bernini.

Grieved by the laxity of enclosure and the worldly traffic of visitors at the Incarnation, Teresa resolved to restore the primitive Carmelite spirit of poverty, solitude, and contemplative prayer. In 1562 she founded the reformed convent of Saint Joseph in Ávila. In 1566 the Superior General authorized further foundations in Castile, including houses for Discalced friars. Convents rose at Medina, Malagón, Valladolid, Toledo, Pastrana, Salamanca, Alba de Tormes, Segovia, Beas, Seville, Soria, Burgos, and elsewhere. In 1567 she met the young priest who became Saint John of the Cross; he took the Discalced habit and accompanied her through bitter divisions within the Order and even accusations of heresy. Together they secured the birth of the reformed Order of Discalced Carmelites, confirmed by papal decree in 1580.

Her greatest works—The Interior Castle, mapping the soul's seven mansions toward God; The Way of Perfection; the Book of the Foundations; together with maxims, poems, and prayers—remain masterpieces of Christian mysticism. Tireless despite fragile health, she died at Alba de Tormes in 1582 during one of her journeys, her last words attested as "I die a daughter of the Church." Forty years later, in 1622, she was canonized by Pope Gregory XV. On 27 September 1970 Pope Paul VI proclaimed her the first woman Doctor of the Church.

May Saint Teresa of Ávila obtain for us a share in her fiery love of Christ and teach us today the virtue of persevering prayer amid every trial.

PROCLAMATION OF SAINT TERESA OF AVILA AS DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH

HOMILY OF THE HOLY FATHER PAUL VI

Sunday, 27 September 1970

We have conferred, or rather: We have recognized the title of Doctor of the Church for Saint Teresa of Jesus. The mere fact of uttering the name of this Saint, so singular and so great, in this place and on this occasion, stirs up in our souls a tumult of thoughts: the first would be that of recalling the figure of Teresa: we see her appear before us, as an exceptional woman, as a religious who, all veiled in humility, penance and simplicity, radiates around her the flame of her human vitality and her spiritual liveliness, and then as a reformer and foundress of a historic and illustrious religious Order, and a most ingenious and fruitful writer, a teacher of the spiritual life, an incomparable and indefatigably active contemplative; . . . how great she is! how unique she is! how human she is! how attractive is this figure! Before speaking of anything else we would be tempted to speak of her, of this Saint, interesting under so many aspects. But do not expect from Us, at this moment, that we should speak to you of the person and the work of Teresa of Jesus: the twofold bibliography gathered in the volume prepared with such care by our Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints would suffice to discourage anyone who wished to condense into a few words the historical and biographical image of this Saint, who seems to overflow the descriptive features within which one would wish to contain her. Besides, it is not properly upon her that we now wish to fix, for a moment, our attention. Rather it is upon the act that we have just performed; upon the fact that we are engraving in the history of the Church and that we entrust to the piety and reflection of the People of God, upon the conferral, we were saying, of the doctoral title to Teresa of Avila, to Saint Teresa of Jesus, the great Carmelite.

SPLENDORS OF WISDOM IN HOLINESS

And the meaning of this act is very clear; an act that intentionally wishes to be luminous, that could have its own symbolic image in a lamp lit before the humble and majestic figure of the Saint: luminous for the bundle of rays that the lamp of the doctoral title projects upon her; and luminous for another bundle of rays, that this same doctoral title projects upon us. Upon her, Teresa: the light of the title brings out indisputable values that were already widely recognized in her: the holiness of life, first of all, a value already officially proclaimed, as of 12 March 1622 - Saint Teresa had died thirty years earlier -, by our Predecessor Gregory XV, in the celebrated canonization, which, together with our Carmelite, inscribed in the roll of Saints Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, Isidore the Farmer, all glory of Catholic Spain, and with them Philip Neri, the last of whom was Florentine-Roman; and it also brings out "the eminence of doctrine," in second place, but this especially (Cf. PROSPERO LAMBERTINI, later Pope Benedict XIV, De Servorum Dei beatificatione, IV, 2, c. 11, n. 13).

The doctrine of Saint Teresa of Avila therefore shines with the charisms of truth, of conformity with the Catholic faith, of usefulness for the edification of souls; and we can particularly note another one, the charism of wisdom, which makes us think of the most attractive and at the same time most mysterious aspect of the doctorate of Saint Teresa, namely the influence of divine inspiration in this prodigious and mystical writer. Whence did Teresa receive the treasure of her doctrine? Undoubtedly from her intelligence and from her cultural and spiritual formation, from her reading, from her conversations with great masters of theology and spirituality, from her singular sensitivity, from her habitual and intense ascetical discipline, from her contemplative meditation; in a word, from her correspondence to grace, received in a soul extraordinarily rich and prepared for the practice and experience of prayer. But was this the only source of her "eminent doctrine"? Or must we not recognize in Saint Teresa acts, facts, states that do not originate from her, but which she undergoes, which are therefore so suffered and passive, mystical in the true sense of the word, that they must be attributed to an extraordinary action of the Holy Spirit? We are undoubtedly before a soul in which the extraordinary divine initiative manifests itself, and by which it is perceived and therefore described by Teresa, with a literary language all her own, simply, faithfully, wonderfully.

WITH ALL ONE'S STRENGTH TO CLIMB TO GOD

Here the questions multiply. The originality of mystical action is among the most delicate and most complex psychological phenomena, in which many factors can intervene, and oblige the observer to the most severe cautions; but in which the wonders of the human soul manifest themselves in a surprising way, and one above all more comprehensive: love, which celebrates in the depth of the heart its most varied and fullest expressions; love which we shall finally have to call marriage, because it is the encounter of the overflowing divine love that descends to meet human love, which tends to ascend with all its strength; it is the most intimate and strongest union with God that is given to a living soul on this earth to experience; and which becomes light, becomes wisdom; wisdom of divine things, wisdom of human things.

And it is of these secrets that the doctrine of Teresa speaks to us; they are the secrets of prayer. Her doctrine is here. She had the privilege and the merit of knowing these secrets through experience, lived in the holiness of a life consecrated to contemplation and at the same time engaged in action, and of experience both suffered and enjoyed in the outpouring of extraordinary spiritual charisms. Teresa had the art of expounding these same secrets, so much so as to rank among the greatest masters of the spiritual life. Not in vain does the statue that places the figure of Teresa in this Basilica as Foundress bear the inscription that well defines the Saint: Mater Spiritualium.

It was already admitted, one might say by unanimous consensus, this prerogative of Saint Teresa, of being a mother, of being a teacher of spiritual persons. A mother full of enchanting simplicity, a teacher full of wonderful depth. The suffrage of the tradition of the Saints, of the Theologians, of the Faithful, of scholars was already assured to her; we have now validated it, ensuring that, adorned with this magisterial title, she has a more authoritative mission to fulfill, in her religious Family and in the praying Church and in the world, with her perennial and present message: the message of prayer.

THE MESSAGE OF PRAYER

This is the light, made today more alive and penetrating, that the title of Doctor, conferred upon Saint Teresa, casts upon us. The message of prayer! It comes to us, children of the Church, at a time marked by a great effort of reform and renewal of the liturgical prayer; it comes to us, tempted by the great noise and the great engagement of the exterior world to yield to the anxiety of modern life and to lose the true treasures of our soul in the conquest of the seductive treasures of the earth. It comes to us, children of our time, while not only the practice of conversation with God is being lost, but also the sense of the need and duty to adore Him and to invoke Him. The message of prayer comes to us, song and music of the spirit imbued with grace and open to the conversation of faith, hope and charity, while psychoanalytic exploration decomposes the fragile and complicated instrument that we are, no longer to draw from it the voices of suffering and redeemed humanity, but to listen to the turbid murmur of its animal subconscious and the cries of its uncomposed passions and its desperate anguish. The sublime and simple message of the prayer of the wise Teresa comes to us, who exhorts us to understand "the great good that God does to a soul, when He disposes it to practice mental prayer with desire; . . . because mental prayer, in my opinion, is nothing other than a friendly way of dealing, in which we often find ourselves speaking, alone with Him who we know loves us" (Vida, 8, 4-5).

In summary, this is the message for us from Saint Teresa of Jesus, Doctor of the Holy Church: let us listen to it and make it our own. We must add two observations that seem important to us. The first is that which notes how Saint Teresa of Avila is the first woman to whom the Church confers this title of Doctor; and this fact is not without the recollection of the severe word of Saint Paul: Mulieres in Ecclesiis taceant (1 Cor. 14, 34): which means, even today, that woman is not destined to have hierarchical functions of magisterium and ministry in the Church. Would the apostolic precept now be violated? Can we answer with clarity: no. In reality, it is not a title that entails hierarchical functions of magisterium, but at the same time we must note that this in no way means a lesser esteem for the sublime mission that woman has among the People of God. On the contrary, woman, entering the Church through Baptism, participates in the common priesthood of the faithful, which enables her and obliges her to "profess before men the faith received from God through the Church" (Lumen gentium, ch. 2, 11). And in such a profession of faith many women have reached the highest peaks, to the point that their word and their writings have been light and guide for their brothers. Light nourished every day in intimate contact with God, even in the noblest forms of mystical prayer, for which Saint Francis de Sales does not hesitate to say that they possess a special capacity. Light made life in a sublime manner for the good and service of men.

ABOVE EVERY OBSTACLE: TO FEEL WITH THE CHURCH

For this reason the Council wished to recognize the high collaboration with divine grace that women are called to exercise, to establish the Kingdom of God on earth, and in exalting the greatness of their mission, it does not hesitate to invite them equally to cooperate "so that humanity may not decline," to "reconcile men with life," "to save peace in the world" (VAT. II, Message to Women). Secondly, we do not wish to overlook the fact that Saint Teresa was Spanish and Spain rightly considers her one of its greatest glories. In her personality the characteristics of her homeland are appreciated: robustness of spirit, depth of feelings, sincerity of heart, love for the Church. Her figure is placed in a glorious epoch of saints and teachers who distinguish their time with the development of spirituality. She listens to them with the humility of a disciple, while at the same time she knows how to judge them with the perspicacity of a great teacher of spiritual life, and as such they consider her.

On the other hand, within and outside the borders of the homeland, the violent storm of the Reformation was raging, setting the children of the Church against one another. Because of her love for the truth and her intimacy with the Master, she had to face bitterness and misunderstandings of every kind and could not give peace to her spirit in the face of the breaking of unity: "I have suffered much," she writes, "and as if I could do something or were something, I wept with the Lord and begged him to remedy so great an evil" (Camino de perfección, c. 1, n. 2; BAC, 1962, 185).

This sense of hers with the Church, tested in sorrow at the sight of the dispersion of forces, led her to react with all her strong Castilian spirit in the anxiety of building up the kingdom of God; she decided to penetrate the world that surrounded her with a reforming vision in order to imprint upon it a meaning, a harmony, a Christian soul. Five centuries later, Saint Teresa of Avila continues to leave the traces of her spiritual mission, of the nobility of her heart thirsting for catholicity, of her love stripped of every earthly affection so as to be able to give herself totally to the Church. Before her last breath, she was able to say, as a summary of her life: "Finally, I am a daughter of the Church!".

In this expression, a welcome presage of the glory of the blessed for Teresa of Jesus, we wish to see the spiritual heritage linked to all of Spain. We also wish to see an invitation to all of us to echo her voice, to transform it into a program for our life so as to be able to repeat with her: we are children of the Church.

With Our Apostolic Blessing.

WONDERFUL GLORY OF SPAIN

We must add two observations that seem important to Us. In the first place it must be noted that Saint Teresa of Avila is the first woman to whom the Church confers the title of Doctor; and this not without recalling the severe words of Saint Paul: "Let women keep silence in the churches" (1 Cor 14:34); which still means today that woman is not destined to have hierarchical functions of magisterium and ministry in the Church. Has the apostolic precept then been violated?

We can answer clearly: no. In reality it is not a title that shares hierarchical functions of magisterium, but at the same time we must point out that this fact in no way implies a disparagement of the sublime mission of woman in the bosom of the People of God.

On the contrary, by being incorporated into the Church by Baptism, she participates in that common priesthood of the faithful, which enables and obliges her to "confess before men the faith that she received from God through the Church" (Lumen gentium, c. 2, 11). And in that confession of the faith so many women have reached the highest peaks, to the point that their word and their writings have been light and guide for their brothers. Light nourished each day in intimate contact with God, even in the highest forms of mystical prayer, for which Saint Francis de Sales goes so far as to say that they possess a special capacity. Light made life in a sublime way for the good and the service of men.

That is why the Council wished to acknowledge the precious collaboration with divine grace that women are called to exercise in order to establish the kingdom of God on earth; and in exalting the greatness of their mission, it does not hesitate to invite them likewise to help "so that humanity may not decline," to "reconcile men with life," "to save the peace of the world" (Vatican II, Message to Women).

Secondly, we do not wish to overlook the fact that Saint Teresa was Spanish, and with good reason Spain considers her one of its great glories. In her personality one can appreciate the traits of her homeland: strength of spirit, depth of feeling, sincerity of soul, love for the Church. Her figure stands out in a glorious age of saints and teachers who mark their century with the flowering of spirituality. She listens to them with the humility of a disciple, while at the same time she knows how to judge them with the insight of a great mistress of the spiritual life, and as such they regard her.

On the other hand, both within and beyond the borders of the homeland, the violent winds of the Reformation were stirring, setting the children of the Church against one another. Because of her love for the truth and her intimate converse with the Master, she had to face troubles and misunderstandings of every kind and did not know how to bring peace to her spirit in the face of the breaking of unity: "I became very weary," she writes, "and as if I could do something or were something, I wept with the Lord and begged Him to remedy so great an evil" (Way of Perfection, ch. 1, n. 2; BAC, 1962, 185).

This her sense of the Church, tested in a sorrow that scattered forces, led her to react with all the integrity of her Castilian spirit in a desire to build up the kingdom of God; she resolved to penetrate the world that surrounded her with a reforming vision in order to give it a meaning, a harmony, a Christian soul.

Five centuries later, Saint Teresa of Avila continues to mark the traces of her spiritual mission, of the nobility of her heart thirsting for catholicity, of her love stripped of every earthly attachment in order to give herself totally to the Church. She was well able to say, before her last breath, as a summary of her life: "In the end, I am a daughter of the Church."

In this expression, already a foretaste and delight of the glory of the blessed for Teresa of Jesus, we wish to discern the spiritual inheritance she bequeathed to the whole of Spain. We must likewise see in it a call addressed to all to echo her voice, making it the motto of our life so that we may repeat with her: We are children of the Church!

With Our Apostolic Blessing.

ADDRESS OF JOHN PAUL II FOR THE FOURTH CENTENARY OF THE DEATH OF SAINT TERESA OF AVILA

8 October 1981

Dear Brother in the Episcopate, Mr. Mayor, Councillors and Citizens of Avila, Fellow Citizens of Saint Teresa of Jesus,

I feel deep satisfaction in receiving today this very large group of yours, which makes me spiritually present to all the inhabitants of Avila, a city that has the good fortune of having given birth to one of the greatest figures in the history of the Church.

This meeting takes place precisely on the occasion of the fourth Centenary of Saint Teresa of Jesus, which is about to be inaugurated in Alba de Tormes and in Avila, two cities so intimately linked, the one by her birth, the other by being the resting place of her mortal remains, to the great reformer of Carmel.

I thank you for this visit, which in a certain way is a first moment of the centenary celebrations with the participation of the Pope, whom particular circumstances will not allow to be with you in the coming days, but who renews his hope that Providence will grant him, in the not too distant future, the propitious moment.

Meanwhile, my Special Envoy Cardinal Ballestrero will make my presence more vivid during the inaugural celebrations of the Centenary, which the ecclesiastical hierarchy has prepared with appropriate initiatives, so that this may truly be, throughout Spain, a year of renewal in faith, in hope, in the religious interiority of the faithful people, in the witness of Christian life in the present historical moment of your Homeland, in the individual, family and social conduct of Spanish Catholics, without presumptions or false complexes, as members of the political community and of the Church.

It is necessary that the rich patrimony left by Teresa of Jesus be deeply meditated upon and inspire a profound renewal in the interior experience of the people, so that in this way all ecclesial life may be strengthened in its many manifestations.

The powerful figure, not only local or national but universal, of the great Teresa must be a strong stimulus in this direction. To this the name she chose as an expression of herself, Teresa of Jesus, invites us, and by which history has known her for four centuries, in the ecclesial, cultural, devotional, spiritual-theological and artistic spheres.

For this reason I render with great joy homage to this saint, to whom together with Saint John of the Cross I feel particularly bound, and who rightly was the first woman to be named a Doctor of the Church by my predecessor Paul VI in 1970, in recognition of her singular merits and her ecclesial significance.

To be fellow citizens or compatriots of Teresa of Jesus is a sign of glory, but also a commitment to draw inspiration from her, from her teaching and example, in order to be faithful to her universal mission, a commitment to be ever better citizens and children of the Church.

Assuring you of my frequent remembrance in prayer, that this Centenary year may bring the desired spiritual fruits, I impart with deep affection the Apostolic Blessing, which I extend to all the citizens of Avila.