The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus

Annals of the Saint's Life. By Don Vicente de la Fuente.

These are substantially the same with those drawn up by the Bollandists, but they are fuller and more minute, and furnish a more detailed history of the Saint.

1515. St. Teresa is born in Avila, March 28th. [1]

1522. She desires martyrdom, and leaves her father's house with one of her brothers.

1527. [2] Death of her mother.

1529. Writes romances of chivalry, and is misled by a thoughtless cousin.

1531. Her sister Maria's marriage, and her removal from home to the Augustinian monastery, where she remains till the autumn of next year.

1533. [3] Nov. 2, enters the monastery of the Incarnation.

1534. Nov. 3, makes her profession.

1535. Goes to Castellanos de la Cañada, to her sister's house, where she remains till the spring of 1536, when she goes to Bezadas.

1537. Returns to Avila on Palm Sunday. In July seriously ill, and in a trance for four days, when in her father's house. Paralysed for more than two years.

1539. Is cured of her paralysis by St. Joseph.

1541. Begins to grow lukewarm, and gives up mental prayer.

1542. Our Lord appears to her in the parlour of the monastery, "stern and grave " [ch. vii. § 11, see note there].

1555. Ceases to converse with secular people, moved thereto by the sight of a picture of our Lord on the cross

[ch. ix. § 1]. The Jesuits come to Avila and the Saint confesses to F. Juan de Padranos.

1556. Beginning of the supernatural visitations.

1557. St. Francis de Borja comes to Avila, and approves of the spirit of the Saint.

1558. First rapture of the Saint [ch. xxiv. § 7]. The vision of Hell [ch. xxxii. § 1]. Father Alvarez ordained priest.

1559. She takes F. Alvarez for her confessor. The transpiercing of her heart [ch. xxix. § 17]. Vision of our

Lord risen from the dead [ch. xxvii. § 3, ch. xxviii. § 2].

1560. The vow of greater perfection. St. Peter of Alcantara approves of her spirit, and St. Luis Beltran encourages her to proceed with her plan of founding a new monastery.

1561. F. Gaspar de Salazar, S.J., comes to Avila; her sister Doña Juana comes to Avila from Alba de Tormes to help the Saint in the new foundation [ch. xxxiii. § 13]. Restores her nephew to Life [ch. xxxv. § 14, note]. Fra Ibañez bids her write her Life. Receives a sum of money from her brother in Peru, which enables her to go on with the building of the new house.

1562. Goes to Toledo, to the house of Doña Luisa de la Cerda, and finishes the account of her Life. Makes the acquaintance of Fra Bañes, afterwards her principal director, and Fra Garcia of Toledo, both Dominicans. Receives a visit from Maria of Jesus. Has a revelation that her sister, Doña Maria, will die suddenly [ch.

xxxiv. § 24]. Returns to Avila and takes possession of the new monastery, August 24. Troubles in Avila. The Saint ordered back to the monastery of the Incarnation. Is commanded by Fra Garcia of Toledo to write the history of the foundation of St. Joseph.

1. In the same year St. Philip was born in Florence. St. Teresa died in 1582, and St. Philip in 1595; but they were canonised on the same day, with St. Isidore, St. Ignatius, and St. Francis Xavier. The three latter were joined together in the three final consistories held before the solemn proclamation of their sanctity, and St. Teresa and St. Philip were joined together in the same way in the final consistories held specially, as usual, for them.

2. This must be an error. See ch. i. § 7, note 7.

3. There is a difficulty about this. The Bollandists maintain that she went to the monastery of the Incarnation in the year 1533. On the other hand Ribera, her most accurate biographer−−with whom Fra Jerome agrees,−−says that she left her father's house in 1535, when she was more than twenty years of age; Yepes, that she was not yet twenty; and the Second Relation of the Rota, that she was in her twentieth year. The Bull of Canonisation and the Office in the Breviary also say that she was in her twentieth year, that is, A.D. 1534. The Chronicler of the Order differs from all and assigns the year 1536 as the year in which she entered the monastery.