On the Subject Of…

St. Teresa De Avila (1515-1582)

One of the most significant figures in the sixteenth-century Spanish mystic movement, St. Teresa de Avila (also known as St. Teresa de Jesus) is also highly regarded as an accomplished prose writer. Her autobiography El libro de su vida (1562; The Life of the Mother Teresa of Jesus) is one of the most widely read books in Spain. Teresa was born in Avila, and in 1536 she entered the convent of Encarnación de Avila as a novice in the Carmelite order. Two years later, Teresa suffered a severe bout of illness, during which she read a number of religious works and began to question her own beliefs about the nature of religious devotion. In 1555 she underwent a conversion experience, and convinced that she had been granted a mystical union with God as a result of her intense meditation and prayer...