The mysticism of Teresa of Avila
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Relating to God
- The will and effort
- Nature of relationships with God
- Union with God
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
SummaryTeresa of Avila (1515-1582) was a nun who came forward in the tumultuous years of the Spanish Inquisition to found a new order of nuns, the Carmelites. The new order had stricter rules about poverty and seclusion than other Spanish orders of that time. Teresa was a contemplative who was famous for reaching the highest levels of union with God, but she was also very active in setting up the new order, traveling in horrendous conditions to often dilapidated houses where nuns were setting up convents and working along side the nuns to open new houses.Teresa is a very popular religious teacher for a few reasons. These include her self-effacing approach to relating her own experience, her down-to-earth examples, and her pithy sense of humor. She has been described as an "able chess-player, an accomplished horsewoman, and a fine dancer" in the years before she entered the convent. Though she lived through one of the most difficult periods of history for a religious woman in the Catholic Church, had recurring bouts of bad health, and met with great opposition in her work, she rarely seemed to lose her sense of humor. Stories abound about her humorous responses to experiences, such as the story that when the cart she was riding in lost a wheel during a storm she said to God, "If this is how you treat your friends, it's no wonder you have so few." In another story, some objected to her eating partridge, and said, "What would people think?" She replied, "Let them think what they please.
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