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The saints

St Teresa of Avila

A lively young woman who ran away to a convent, and later set Spain on fire.

Feast: 15 October · 1515 to 1582 · Avila, Spain

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The medieval walls of Avila, Spain: golden stone ramparts with round towers under a blue sky.

Carlos Delgado, 2011. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Home / The saints / St Teresa of Avila

Avila, Spain, November 1535

A young woman leaves her father’s house without his knowledge.1

She goes to the Carmelite convent of the Incarnation at Avila, which already counts 140 nuns.1

Decades later she would lead one of the great reforms in the history of religious life.

01St Teresa of Avila

Reform

Teresa founded her first reformed convent, St Joseph’s at Avila, on 24 August 1562, and in rapid succession many more followed.1

With St John of the Cross she established her reform among the Carmelite friars in 1568.1

02St Teresa of Avila

A writer for the ages

The account of her spiritual life in her Life and her Interior Castle forms one of the most remarkable spiritual biographies ever written.1

The Catechism quotes her description of prayer as close sharing between friends.2

The medieval walls of Avila, Spain: golden stone ramparts with round towers under a blue sky.
The walls of Avila, the city of St Teresa. Carlos Delgado, 2011. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Notes

  1. Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), “St. Teresa of Jesus (Teresa of Avila)”. New Advent edition. newadvent.org
  2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2709. vatican.va

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: Douay-Rheims, Challoner revision (public domain). Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an error.