On October 15, the Catholic Church celebrates Saint Teresa of Avila, the Spanish Carmelite reformer and mystic whose deep faith and spirituality played a major role in the renewal of the Church during the 16th-century Counter-Reformation.
Teresa Sánchez Cepeda Dávila y Ahumada was born in 1515 in the Spanish city of Avila. She was the third child in a family that had converted from Judaism to Christianity during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. Her father, Alonso Sánchez de Cepeda, was a devout Catholic who kept a collection of spiritual writings similar to those Teresa would later compose herself.
From childhood, Teresa was fascinated by the idea of heaven and the joy of being united with God. Along with her brother Rodrigo, she once tried to leave home hoping to become a martyr in a Muslim land, but a relative found them and brought them back safely.
When Teresa was 14, her mother died, which deeply affected her. This loss led her to turn to the Virgin Mary as her spiritual mother. However, she also became interested in romantic stories about knights and began caring greatly about her appearance, something she later saw as a distraction from her spiritual life. Concerned about her upbringing, her father sent her to study at a convent of Augustinian nuns. Although she found life there dull at first, she gradually learned to appreciate its spiritual peace.
After two years, illness forced Teresa to leave the convent. With the help of her uncle and through reading the works of St. Jerome, she decided to dedicate her entire life to God. Despite her father’s hesitation, she entered the Carmelite Order at the age of 20. Soon after, she became seriously ill, experiencing paralysis and even a four-day coma. When she recovered, she returned to the convent determined to live out her vocation faithfully.
During her early years as a nun, Teresa developed a strong habit of silent prayer, often reflecting on God’s presence within her. Later, as her health improved, she began to drift into a more ordinary spiritual routine. For nearly twenty years, she lived faithfully but without the same deep spiritual connection she once felt. Around the age of 40, she experienced a powerful renewal through contemplation and prayer. Under the guidance of her confessors, she recorded her spiritual experiences in her autobiography, completed in 1565.
Teresa came to understand that God’s presence remained with her always, not only after receiving Holy Communion. This discovery changed her entire outlook on prayer and inspired her to reform the Carmelite Order, calling its members back to their original simplicity, prayer, and solitude.
Together with St. John of the Cross, she founded the Discalced Carmelites, whose name means “barefoot,” a symbol of humility and poverty. Though her reforms faced strong opposition, Teresa went on to establish 30 monasteries across Spain.
In 1582, while traveling through Salamanca, Teresa fell seriously ill. Accepting her suffering with peace, she said, “O my Lord and my spouse, the desired hour has come. The hour is at last come, wherein I shall pass out of this exile, and my soul shall enjoy in thy company what it hath so earnestly longed for.”
St. Teresa of Avila passed away on October 15, 1582. She was canonized on March 22, 1622, along with St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Francis Xavier, and St. Philip Neri. In 1970, Pope St. Paul VI declared her one of the first two women Doctors of the Church, together with St. Catherine of Siena.