TERESA: A PRAYER CENTERED REFORMER (Part 3)
CONVENT LIFE AND SICKNESS
At first, Teresa did not care for this new type of living. However, she was attracted to a deeply prayerful nun, Dona Maria Briceno, and gradually adapted to this semimonastic lifestyle. She was even experiencing a struggle within herself concerning a possible vocation. She knew that she did not want to become a married woman who would have to bear many children and give up her independence to a husband who could even become abusive. The stress she was under caused her to become so sick that her father brought her home.
After her recovery, she went to stay with her married sister for a time. On her way she stopped at her uncle Don Pedro’s home. He was able to suggest to her books, one of which was the Letters of Saint Jerome, where she found help with her struggles about a religious vocation. When she finally decided to enter the religious life, her father would not give his consent to his much-loved Teresa. However, she asked to be admitted to the Carmelite Monastery of the Incarnation and left home secretly on November 2, 1535, at age twenty. Her father decided to resign himself to the decision of his strong-willed daughter and provided a substantial dowry and what Teresa would need to have an apartment of her own. Life was austere at the Incarnation. The recitation of the Divine Office, the observance of silence needed to provide a prayerful atmosphere, along with fasting gave a penitential character to her life. However, there was no time set aside for mental prayer. Evidently there were no instructions given to novices on how to pray or to become recollected. Strangely, the books Teresa read were not by Carmelites but by Franciscans.
Two years after her entrance Teresa made her profession of vows. Following her profession, she became ill with a sickness the doctors could not diagnose. At Becedas there was a quack who had a reputation for healing. Teresa’s father decided to take her there for treatment. Her precarious health only worsened, close to death she asked to be taken back to her father’s home. Shortly thereafter, Teresa was pronounced dead and the nuns at the Monastery of the Incarnation had a grave opened for her burial. However, her father refused to believe that she was dead. She came out of the coma but insisted that she be taken back to her community.
For the next two years she was paralyzed. Her patience contributed to her reputation as a very holy nun, which attracted many visitors. Finally, our Saint decided that she wanted to recover and placed her request in the care of Saint Joseph. Her powerful patron obtained for her a gradual recovery from her paralysis.
(….to be continued everyday till end of article)
Article by Mary Eileen McNamara, OCD , titled “Saint Teresa of Avila: Prayer-Centered Reformer”, Published in Spiritual Life, Summer 2010.
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