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by Spixxy on February 7th, 2004

Spixxy

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Who is St. Teresa?

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  • by notmrjohn on September 22nd, 2005

    notmrjohn

    St. Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church
    b. 1515 d. 1582
    Canonized in 1622, patron saint of Headache sufferers. Her symbol is a heart, an arrow, and a book.
    Teresa suffered the same problem that Francis of Assisi did -- she was too charming. Everyone liked her and she liked to be liked. As a child was always afraid that no matter what she did she was going to do everything wrong. When she was five years old she convinced her older brother that they should, "go off to the land of the Moors and beg them, out of love of God, to cut off our heads there." After this incident she led a fairly ordinary life, though she was convinced that she was a horrible sinner. As a teenager, she cared only about boys and clothes and flirting and rebelling -- like other teenagers throughout the ages. Entered convent at age 16, fairly typical for the time when many young women entered convents for training and education then left a few years later. Thus many convents were more secular and worldly than before or since.Prestige depended not on piety but on money. There was a steady stream of visitors in the parlor and parties that included young men. What spiritual life there was involved hysteria, weeping, exaggerated penance, nosebleeds, and self- induced visions. At the age of 43, she became determined to found a new convent that went back to the basics of a contemplative order: a simple life of poverty devoted to prayer.
    "May God protect me from gloomy saints," Teresa said, and that's how she ran her convent. To her, spiritual life was an attitude of love, not a rule. Although she proclaimed poverty, she believed in work, not in begging. She believed in obedience to God more than penance. If you do something wrong, don't punish yourself -- change. When someone felt depressed, her advice was that she go some place where she could see the sky and take a walk. When someone was shocked that she was going to eat well, she answered, "There's a time for partridge and a time for penance." To her brother's wish to meditate on hell, she answered, "Don't."
    Once she had her own convent, was called "a restless disobedient gadabout who has gone about teaching as though she were a professor" by the papal nuncio. When her former convent voted her in as prioress, the leader of the Carmelite order excommunicated the nuns. A vicar general stationed an officer of the law outside the door to keep her out. No one in religious orders or in the world wanted Teresa reminding them of the way God said they should live. She is the founder of the Discalced Carmelites. In 1970 she was declared a Doctor of the Church for her writing and teaching on prayer, one of two women to be honored in this way.
    I dunno why she is the saint for headache sufferers, 'less its acause she caused so many for the establishment.
    You can read more at
    .
    http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=208
    where i found all this info, you can read about most any saint at
    http://www.catholic.org/saints/stindex.php
    in fact that's the best way to find out cause reading my answers is liable to give you more headaches than information.

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