Doctors Of The Church
St. Teresa of Avila
Spanish nun and mystic. First woman Doctor. Joint founder of the Discalced Carmelites along with St. John of the Cross. Religious Order: Carmelites. (1515-1582)
St. Teresa of Avila was born on December 6, 1515 in Gotarrendura, Ávila, Crown of Castile (today- Spain). Two years after the birth of Teresa, Luther had started the Protestant Reformation. After all this change, Teresa showed the way from outer disturbance to inner peace. When Teresa was at the age of 39, she started having vivid experiences of God's presence from within her.
Some of Teresa's friends, such as Gaspar Daza and Francisco de Salcedo, thought her blessings were works of the devil. Others, such as Diego de Cetina brought comfort to Teresa encouraging her to continue her mental prayer and to also think about humanity of christ. A priest acting as her confessor, told her that it was only the devil working within the vision she had repeatedly had of christ and commanded Teresa to laugh at the vision, forget about it, and make the sign of the cross. She apologized to God for following the confessors orders, but God didn't fail to comfort her.
Teresa's biggest faults came from her friendships. Although she had not been sinning, she was still very attached to all her friends until God had told her " No longer do I want you to converse with human beings but with angels. " Instantly she was given the freedom she was unable to have through all her years of effort. After this God came first in her life.
In Teresa's books, she interpreted and anatomized the mystical experiences she underwent. Teresa had never seen these gifts as rewards to her from God but the way he disciplined her. The more love she endured the ...
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... escaped by unscrewing the lock on his prison door and crawling past the guard. With little knowledge of where he even was, he let a dog lead him to civilization. St. John hid in a convent where he read his poetry to the nuns. From there on, his life was dedicated to sharing and explaining all his experiences of God's love.
You would think that his rough life of poverty and abuse could have made him more of a bitter person but instead it only produced a more compassionate spiritual man, who would live by these beliefs “who has ever seen people persuade to love God by harshness?” and “Where there is no love, put love and you will find the love.” He left many of his books full of practical advice on the spiritual growth and prayer that are still relevant today as they were back then. Some of his writings included Dark Night of the Soul and Ascent of Mount Carmel.
He was working in the steaming pit of hell; day after day, week after week- until now there was not an organ of his body that did its work without pain, until the sound of ocean breaks echoes in his head day and night… and from all the unending horror of this there was a respite, a deliverance- he could drink! He could forget the pain, he could slip off the burden: he would see clearly again, he would be master of his brain, of his
Her choices of metaphors are simplistic explanations providing the backdrop for the emotional and spiritual connection we seek in following Christ. The symbolic comparisons of Mary Magdalene, her relationship to Jesus, mirrors some of Julian of Norwich’s personal spiritual journey of prayerful contemplation while seeking intimacy in her relationship to God.
Rebecca Nurse is known to all as a saintly woman. She followed God with all her heart, soul, mind, and strength. The Lord is her savior and protector. But because of mass hysteria, Mrs. Nurse was incriminated for exploiting witchcraft. This aghast most people because the most religious person they knew was a witch.
Teresa Sanchez de Cepeda y Ahumada, better known as St. Teresa of Avila, was a Spanish Catholic Saint and Carmelite nun who was most prominently known for her journey towards contemplative life through mental prayer. In her reflective and analytical autobiography, The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, of the Order of Our Lady of Carmel, Teresa reflects on her interactions with others as a child, as a woman and as a nun, and bases her opinion of her own freedom and free will on these reflections. In this paper, I will argue the dual nature of freedom in Teresa’s life; on the one hand, Teresa is free in that she breaks free from the traditional role of the woman and society’s honour codes- despite citing honour as providing some guidance in her life-,
STEGGINK, O., and S. V. RAMGE. "Teresa of Avila, St." New Catholic Encyclopedia. 2nd ed. Vol. 13. Detroit: Gale, 2003. 826-830. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 3 Apr. 2014.
Teresa Sánchez Cepeda Davila y Ahumada lived in Avila, Spain where she was born in 1515 and lived during the Reformation until her death at age 67. She was canonized in 1622, forty years after her death. St. Teresa's grandmother was forced to be converted from a Jew into a Christian during the Inquisition. Without her grandmother’s conversion, St. Teresa would never have become a Christian saint. Her parents were Godly people and showed tremendous integrity.
Tucker, Ruth A. “Mother Teresa.” Christian History 19.1 (2000): 20. History Reference Center. Web. 17 Sept. 2013.
She turned and prayed to Saints and God for help, based off of her drive to be more heavenly. She was not only calmed by the power of God, but she also had her eyes opened to His glory. This was due to the fact that when God made his glory known to her, He engraved so deeply upon her heart that she could never flee again. The holy engravement would still remain, even if she forgot the very vision where she realized this truth. This shows that Teresa realized the divine power of her visions. Realizing this, confirmed to her that her visions were from God and not from the devil. Even outsiders saw that she was changed by her experience. Paraphrased from Life of Teresa of Jesus, But she knew that she had jewels of her own love, as well as a changed soul. Other people even noticed too. She knew this wasn’t from the devil because of what happened in her spiritually. After this realization, Teresa was so transformed, that instead of thinking that she was crazy and believing the holy people, their questioning of her didn’t bother her as she lifter her eyes up to God for
The Roman Catholic Church was trying to find a way to have the communities be part of the church through attending services once a week. During this time of French history, going against the Roman Catholic Church could have lead to imprisonment or even death. But, it shows just how one woman was able to take Miguel De Molino ideas and translate them into her own life. Through her book, one is able to practice Quietism, as the Spanish theologian had wanted other people to practice. A Short and Easy Method of Prayer also shows how ideas spread further and wider at the turn of the
Through all of his courage, he found what he was looking for. He dug deep and went to the extremes that were not normal to himself. All of his work leads to his dynamic characteristics.
Blessed Raymond of Capua. The Life of Saint Catherine of Siena . Trans. George Lamb. New York: P.J. Kennedy and Sons, 1960.
Saint Rita was born 1318 and died in 1472. When she was born she was given the name of Margherita Lotti. The day of Margherita’s baptism, she was surrounded by bees that were white and flew into her mouth and didn’t harm her in any kind of way. Her family wasn’t even frightened by this, but they believed she would be ardent to God. When Saint Rita was very young she wanted to join a convent, but her family had her marry a man named Paolo Mancini. When she was only 12 her husband had a brutal attitude towards her and she would be verbally and physically abused and she became a mother. Rita lead Paolo to be a better person. Paolo was eventually killed by one of his own allies. Her two sons that were very angry over their father's murder, they became like their father
LaPierre, D. (1997). Mother Teresa and the leprosy of the soul. New Perspectives Quarterly, 14(4), 35.
While Helena was at a dance with her sister Natalia, she had a vision of Jesus suffering. She went to the nearby Cathedral of Saint Stanislaus Kostka, where Jesus told her go to Warsaw, Poland and enter a convent. She left immediately.
It all started in 1922 in Skopje, Yugoslavia. One day while, the soon to be known as, Mother Teresa was walking, she felt God call her to serve the poor at only the age of 12. Seven years later she discovered her calling was to serve the poor in Calcutta, India and prepared to leave her comfy nunnery in Loretto. As she walked through the beautiful garden in the nunnery, before she left, she questioned leaving all of this beauty for the slums of Calcutta.