15 October 2022 - St Teresa of Avila - Saturday of the 28th week in Ordinary Time - Ephesians 1:15-23

      We have learned about a lot of great saints during our days of pilgrimage in Italy, celebrating Mass in places connected with them, including St Benedict, the Father of monasticism in the West and the Rule of St Benedict, and today Padre Pio.  During our tour of Rome, our wonderful tour guide, Elena, spoke to us about St Catherine of Siena, who was instrumental in getting the Pope back to Rome after many years of exile in Avignon.  Catherine of Siena was named as a Doctor of the Church on the same day in 1970 as the saint we celebrate today on her feast day - St Teresa of Avila.  We saw Teresa’s large statue at the front of St Peter’s, along with the statue of her fellow Carmelite reformer, St John of the Cross.  Teresa of Avila is woman who has contributed so much to Catholic spirituality and the life of the Church.  Some of you know that I have taken the first step in entering the Carmelite secular order.  I wear a medal of St Teresa around my neck.  I have visited her hometown of Avila three times.  I really love Teresa of Avila and have a strong devotion to her.  

       Can we even imagine a women in the 16th century, the era of the Spanish inquisition, not long after the Spanish expelled the Muslim Moors from their country, in the years right after the Protestant Reformation, any efforts at reform were met with suspicion and anger.  Yet, Teresa felt that the Carmelite order had strayed from the simplicity, poverty, and spirituality of the original Carmelite vision.  When her efforts at reform were rebuked, she ended up founding a new Carmelite order, the discalced (barefoot) Carmelites.  Her writings on spirituality and contemplative prayer are considered masterpieces.  She died in the year 1582 at the age of 67 and was canonized in 1622, meaning that this is the 400th year anniversary of her canonization.  She was a mystic, yet her prayers rooted in an earthy realistic everyday spirituality are very accessible to all of us.  Teresa wrote this famous prayer: 

Let nothing disturb you,

Let nothing frighten you,

All things are passing;

God only is changeless.

Patience gains all things.

Who has God wants nothing.

God alone suffices. 

       St Paul, in the letter to the Ephesians today, spoke about how Christ was sent to us by God the Father, that Christ founded the Church, and the Church endures as Christ’s body here on earth.  I think of how St Teresa’s relationship with the Church was not always an easy tranquil relationship, but that she remained in the Church, never giving up in her efforts to reform the Church in the ways she felt God was calling her to do.  St Teresa of Avila, we unite our prayers with your prayers today.