St. Teresa of Avila

At the suggestion of my friend Becky​, today's story is about St. Teresa of Avila.

St. Teresa is well known for her sanctity, her reform of the Carmelite Order and her mystical experiences -- sometimes in prayer her body would actually leave the ground.  However, she did not start out holy and it took her a very long time to reach this point.

As a young girl, Teresa loved romance novels. As a teenager, she cared only about boys, flirting, clothes and rebelling. At the age of 16, her father sent her to a convent because he thought she was out of control.  When the time came for her to make a choice whether to stay in the convent or leave for marriage, she chose to stay because she thought that a convent was the only safe place for someone as sinful as she was.

In the convent, Teresa started to learn and practice mental prayer, but there were too many distractions for her to make progress in her spiritual life. She found it too easy to slip into a worldly life and ignore God. After nearly dying of malaria, she almost stopped praying altogether.

It was at the age of 41 that a priest convinced her to return to prayer. This is when her mystical experiences began during her times of prayer.  Two years later, she became determined to found a new convent that went back to the basics of a contemplative order: a simple life of poverty devoted to prayer, and at 51 she decided to reform her order. She faced much opposition from her brothers and sisters in religious life, but Teresa looked on these difficulties as good publicity. Soon she had postulants clamoring to get into her reform convents. Many people thought about what she said and wanted to learn about prayer from her. Soon her ideas about prayer swept not only through Spain but all of Europe.
Her feast day is Oct 15.