“When the devil reminds you of your past, remind him of his future!”
Teresa Ali Fatim Corella Sanchez de Capeda y Ahumada was born in Avila, Spain in 1515 to a noble and prominent family.
As a teenager she only cared for boys, clothes, flirting and defying her parents and so when she was 16, her father sent her off to a convent. She hated it but slowly began to grow in her love of God and enjoyed it as she felt it was the safest place for someone who was prone to sin, just as she was.
She was very charming and everyone liked her which gave her energy. Like the other sisters, she found it too easy to slip into a worldly life and ignore God. Although the convent encouraged her to have visitors to teach them mental prayer, she got more involved in flattery, vanity and gossip which kept her from God.
She then fell ill with malaria, had a severe seizure and was in a coma for 4 days. When she awakened, she was surprised to have discovered they dug a grave for her and was paralyzed for 3 years. She used her disability as an excuse to not pray.
At 41, a priest convinced her to return to prayer but she found it difficult and was distracted often by her friends and other worldly thoughts. God gave her spiritual delights and mystical experiences and told her to be rid of her friends who had become her biggest fault. She obeyed and experienced a new freedom with God placed first in her life.
Her friends then caused difficulty with hurtful gossip. She saw the true deception and sought to reform her Carmelite order.
At 43, she founded a new convent which went back to the basics and simple life of poverty and devotion to prayer. Past harmful gossip spread and she was denounced and threatened with Inquisition. Even the town started legal proceedings against her.
She prayed for God’s protection and she moved ahead calmly as if nothing was wrong with full trust in God. She believed and practiced work instead of begging, obedience more than penance and then wrote a book of her life which the Inquisition viewed positively and cleared her of wrongdoing.
At 51, with continued health difficulty, she began to spread her reform movement and braved heat, ice, snow, thieves and rat-infested inns to found more convents but she was still an outcast and opposed wherever she went. She would even enter towns quietly at night to avoid uprisings. She then began to view these difficulties as publicity and candidates started clamoring to join the new order. She befriended Saint John of the Cross, a newly ordained priest at the age of 25, and together they collaborated to found the 1st convent of Discalced Carmelite friars.
It was with both their efforts that the Discalced Carmelites spread to 16 more convents throughout Spain.
After being invited to found another convent by the Archbishop of Avila, she journeyed in ill health to the new location during a storm. She quickly succumbed to the illness and died at the age of 67.
In 1970 she was declared a Doctor of the Church for her writings and teachings on prayer. She is only 1 of 2 women to be honored in this way and was canonized in 1622.
“Trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.”
https://www.discalcedcarmelites.org/
She is the patron saint of headache sufferers, the Spanish military, opposition of Church Authorities, people in need of Grace, religious, and Spanish Catholic writers.
Her feast day is October 15.
For God’s Glory.
