A Public Thanks, of Sorts

I could not let this day pass without some word on my patroness, Saint Teresa of Avila, whose feast day is today. I lack the gifts to tell you much about her, especially when such has been done, so I will stick to what I know of her in my personal experience.

In 2003, I was sticking my toes over the Church threshold. That June, I went to a youth conference that, quite simply changed my life. Having a conversion experience makes one prime for a whole lot of maturing, spiritually and intellectually, if you want the experience to ever be more than that, and all the more if you're young and addle-brained at the start. Such was the journey I was just beginning when I went to my grandparents house a few weeks after the Weekend That Changed Everything. If I recall my time line right, my grandparents had themselves recently entered the Roman Church and had a new collection of Catholic stuff in their house, including a coffee table book of saints located... well, on their coffee table.

Santa Teresa de Avila, 1827, Francois Gerard

This was the picture on the cover, and I remember vividly the feeling that crept into my eighteen-year-old, newly-rescued-from-contented-lukewarmness chest when I saw the expression in this woman's face. I was intimidated and drawn in at the same time. I saw a woman who was on her knees as a servant but who sat upright and looked you square in the face with a soul of great strength, and I flipped the book open to find out who this was, instantly fascinated.

Turns out she was Teresa of Avila, a Carmelite nun, a writer, and reformer of her order who lived in Spain before, during, and after the Reformation. She came from a rich family and joined the Carmelites, according to most accounts I've read, mostly because she didn't trust herself not to sin in the world. She seems, I like to think, like myself in some ways, strong willed, seemingly contradictory, sometimes stubborn, even where God was concerned, but devoutly and passionately in love.

She broke fasts when gifts of partridge were brought to the convent, and once told God, after the carriage she was ridding in dumped her out in the mud, "If this is how You treat your friends, it's no wonder You have so few". She also said, "The important thing is not to think much, but to love much", and "All things pass. God alone suffices." She suffered long periods of spiritual dryness and physical anguish, and then ecstasies and visions, and had her heart pierced by an arrow (depicted by Bernini in the splendid sculpture below). She was named the first woman Doctor of the Church for her writings. She is, in a a word, incredible.

When the time came for me to pick my patron saint for confirmation, I wavered only momentarily -- I considered the Archangel Michael, but decided that I am militant enough as it is. Teresa is more even-tempered. Hers is the only medal I've worn over the last three years, sharing a chain with the crucifix Becca, my godmother, gave me. And it turns out that when Saint John Bosco founded the Salesian sisters who run the school I'm living and working in, he gave them Saints Francis de Sales and Teresa of Avila as their special patrons. This fact thrilled me when I learned it two weeks after arriving because it was reassurance of what I already knew -- that this humble and strong servant of God has me firmly "by the shoulders", as Sr. Rosann put it. If she can impart to me a drop of her faithfulness and backbone, I cannot help but live every day a little more for Christ.

The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, 1647-52, Bernini