Teresa of Avila was born in 1515, more than 500 years ago. She entered the Carmelite monastery at the age of 20 against the wishes of her Father. She experienced great physical and spiritual challenges in her first years as a nun. During the first 20 years in the monastery, she lived a very conflicted life. She followed her religious duties as a nun, yet was still very attached to worldly comforts and social status. One day during Lent in the year 1554, she entered the chapel and saw the statue of the wounded Christ. Overwhelmed with feelings of Christ’s love for her, she fell to the floor in tears and surrender to him. This event changed her life dramatically.
Teresa realized that she and the other nuns needed to return to a life of simplicity and humility, to get back to the roots of the hermits who lived on Mount Carmel in the Holy Land in the 12th century, the beginnings of the Carmelite order. The Carmelite monk St John of the cross joined Teresa’s efforts of reform and renewal of the Carmelite order; this led the establishment of a new religious order named the discalced or barefoot Carmelites. Teresa of Avila is the author of two important books on Catholic spirituality: The Way of Perfection and the Interior Castle. She died in the year 1582 at the age of 67.
Right now, around 16,000 monks and nuns are members of the Discalced Carmelites living in monasteries around the world. Teresa was named as the first female doctor of the Church in 1970 by Pope Paul VI, alongside St Catherine of Siena. I have visited the city of Avila several times on pilgrimage. The city of Avila has one of the best preserved medieval walls surrounding a city in all of Europe. Teresa’s presence is still very much felt in this city many centuries after her death. As a member of the secular Carmelites myself here in the Diocese of Jackson, I very much experience Teresa of Avila and her spirituality as a part of my priesthood.
St Teresa of Avila is a great Church reformer, theologian, spiritual leader, and mystic. One of the things I take away from the life of St Teresa of Avila and her spirituality is how prayer is not to be a rigid chore that we do or to be focused on the words, put prayers is to be seen as a conversation between close friends, as a part of our friendship with God and our friendship with Jesus.
One of the things I take away from the life of St Teresa of Avila and her spirituality is how prayer is not to be a rigid chore that we do or to be focused on the words, put prayers is to be seen as a conversation between close friends, as a part of our friendship with God and our friendship with Jesus.
In our Gospel today, we here about the parable of the vines and the branches. It is so important that we feel connected to Jesus and maintain a personal relationship with him. Through Jesus we are connected to the Father and connected to our brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ. As we pray together and worship together as a school community, we come together today to offer mass for Luke Anglin, whose is connected to different members of our St Joseph community. We unite our prayers with the prayers of our Mother Mary, with St Joseph, our school’s patron, St Teresa of Avila and all the members of the community of saints.
I am reminded of a wonderful prayer written by St Teresa of Avila that talks about how in our works and our actions and our presence, we can be the presence of Christ in the world:
Christ has no body but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours, Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world, Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good, yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
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