15 October 2021 = Friday of the 28th week in Ordinary Time - Psalm 32

     At the beginning of the month, we celebrated the feast day of Therese of Lisieux, Carmelite nun from France and Doctor of the Church. Today, we celebrate another Carmelite nun who is a Doctor of the Church: Teresa of Avila from 16th century Spain.  Teresa was born in Avila, Spain in 1515, two years before the actions of Martin Luther that stated the events that led to the Protestant Reformation in the Church.  She was born in the era of the Spanish Conquistadors, the Spanish Inquisition, and right after the Moors were expelled from Spain, an era of movement, change, and turmoil.  Yet, with the Protestant Reformation threatening Catholicism, reform movements in the Church were not taken lightly.  Teresa felt called by God to reform the Carmelite order, to get them back to the humble roots of monasticism that started that order that she felt had become distorted throughout the centuries.  She and her companion John of the Cross founded monasteries based on their reformed, with the Discalced Carmelites becoming its own religious order.  Besides being an important reformer in the Church, Teresa is an important theologian and mystic in the history of Christianity.  The Interior Castle was written in 1577 by Teresa as a guide for spiritual development through service and prayer. The work was inspired by her vision of the soul as a diamond in the shape of a castle containing seven mansions, which she interpreted as the journey of faith through seven stages, ending with union with God.  Teresa’s mysticism and her actions in living out her faith and in reforming the Carmelite order are an example to all of us as to how we can mix our prayer life and interior life with a life of service and action and living out our faith.  What is interesting about Teresa of Avila is that in 1855 at the age of 40 she had a profound interior experience with Jesus that enacted a conversion within her.  She identified greatly with St Mary Magdalene and St Augustine, two saints we strongly associate with repentance and conversion.  As you can tell, me speaking about Teresa of Avila today, she is a saint with whom I have a very strong devotion.  The refrain of the psalm today states: “I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble, and you fill me with the joy of salvation.”  I think that Teresa of Avila would agree with that statement, that it times of trouble, she turned to the Lord, and he led her and guided her to the way of faith and the way of salvation.  Let us unite our prayers with the prayers of St Teresa of Avila today.