St. Teresa of Avila, whose feast day is celebrated on Oct. 15, is one of four women who have been honored with the title of Doctor of the Church. The other three glorious women are St. Hildegard of Bingen, St. Therese of Lisieux and St. Catherine of Siena. St. Teresa was born into a well-to-do family, long established in Spain, and was one of 10 children in her family. As a child, Teresa was pious and outgoing. In 1535, she entered the Carmelite monastery at Ávila, the Monastery of the Incarnation. She took her vows in 1537, taking the name of Teresa of Jesus.
While the Carmelite rule required being cloistered, many monasteries did not enforce the rules strictly. Many of the nuns of Teresa’s time lived away from the convent, and when at the convent, they followed the rules rather loosely. She wrote, over five years, “The Way of Perfection,” perhaps her best-known writing, completing it in 1566. In it, she offered guidelines for reforming monasteries. Her basic rules required love of God and of fellow Christians, emotional detachment from human relationships for full focus on God, and Christian humility.
In 1580, she completed another of her major writings, “Castle Interior.” This was an explanation of the spiritual journey of the religious life, using the metaphor of a many-roomed castle. For St. Teresa, humility was the primary virtue that a soul must have in order to make any progress in the spiritual life. Any soul that is serious about following the path to salvation should consider reading St. Teresa’s classic works.
