Today is another great day for Catholic women and a feast day that should put the wind up certain clerics in more ways than one.
It's 15th October and a day we celebrate St Teresa of Avila. Born as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada , she became a writer, theologian, mystic, and a no-nonsense nun.
Even Wikipedia acknowledges: "Her written contributions, which include her autobiography, The Life of Teresa of Jesus and her seminal work The Interior Castle, are today an integral part of Spanish Renaissance literature. Together with The Way of Perfection, her works form part of the literary canon of Christian mysticism and Christian meditation practice, and continue to attract interest from people both within and outside the Catholic Church."
Quirky bit of history: Her final illness overtook her on one of her journeys from Burgos to Alba de Tormes. She died in 1582, just as Catholic Europe was making the switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, which required the excision of the dates of 5–14 October from the calendar. She died either before midnight of 4 October or early in the morning of 15 October which is celebrated as her feast day. (According to the liturgical calendar then in use, she died on the 15th in any case, which began at sunset.).
When I was a young Catholic lad my grandmother didn't have any images of this Tess in the house,preferring the 20th Century French lass, St Therese of Lisieux who played for the same convent team as Avila and also left a legacy of writings that endured her to a new generation. Therese is also an October pin -up getting her memorial day on 1st October.
Therese of Lisieux has a whole dynasty of sainted relatives with her parents also being canonised as recently as 2015.
So it/s name day greetings and belated greetings to the Teresa and Therese network of friends as well as friends across the communities of Carmel.
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