St. Teresa Research Paper

St. Teresa of Avila (Teresa de Capeda y Ahumada) was born in Avila, a Spanish town, on 28 March, 1515. She lived in 16th century, a time of turmoil and reform. Before her birth, Protestant Reformation had been made by Martin Luther, and she died almost 20 years after the Council of Trent. She was the daughter of a Toledo merchant (Don Alonso Sanchez de Cepeda) and his second wife (Dona Beatriz Davila y Ahumada), both of them were pious Catholic. They inspired their daughter to take a life of a prayer. When St. Teresa was just a little girl, she already had a deeply religious nature. Her habit was to retreat into silence for prayer and help poor people. She and her mother were very close to each other. Interestingly, her mother held a warm counterbalance that contrasted with the strictness of St. Teresa’s father. However, when St. Teresa was just 14 years old, her mother passed away. The young Teresa went through such a hard time after her mother’s death. She describes her feeling, “With many tears, I implored the Holy Virgin to become my mother now. …show more content…
Due to this reason, St. Teresa started to restore the life of Carmelite to its original observance of austerity, which was almost. Her reform required the nuns to live the prayerful life of penance (also known as “our vocation of reparation” for the sins of mankind as she said). On 24 August, 1562, with Pope Pius IV’s authorization, she opened the convent of Discalced Carmelite Nuns of the Primitive Rule of St. Joseph at Avila. In 1567, John Baptist Rossi, the General of the Carmelites, visited St. Teresa, directing her to found more convents and to establish monasteries. In the same year, she met a young Carmelite priest in Medina del Campo (Spain), Juan de Yepes, who she thought could initiate the Carmelite Reform. A year later, the first monastery of the Primitive Rule at Duruelo (Spain) was opened by