A Nun's Life

Teresa of Avila was born on March 28, 1515, to a Toledo merchant and his second wife. Teresa mother died when she was only 15. Not long after the passing of her mother she was entrusted to the care of the Augustinian nuns. She committed herself to a religious life after she read the letter of St. Jerome. She joined the Carmelite Oder in 1535. She spent the next couple of years in this convent, until she became seriously ill. It was an illness that left her legs paralyzed for three years.

When she had a vision of "the sorely wounded Christ" it changed her life forever. She began to have of increasingly ecstatic experiences in which she came to focus more and more sharply on Christ's passion. Using these visions as a guide she began her attempt to master herself and her adherence to the rule. She began to gather a group of supporters, she strived to create a more primitive type of Carmelite. From 1560 until her death, Teresa fought to create and broaden the movement of Discalced, shoeless Carmelites. During the mid-1560s, she wrote The Way of Perfection and The Meditations on the Canticle. In 1567, she met St. John of the Cross, who helped her to extend her reform into the male side of the Carmelite Order. Teresa died in 1582.
(This image shows St. Teresa in her later in her life. I picked this one, because it portrays her as being very holy)