Saint Teresa

October 15 Feast Day of St. Teresa


    When a child of seven years, Teresa ran away from her home
    at Avila in Spain, in the hopes of being martyred by the Moors.
    She was brought back by an envoy of the Moors. When asked
    the reason of her flight, she replied, "I want to see God, and I
    must die before I can see Him." She then began with her
    brother to build a hermitage in their garden and was often heard
    repeating, "Forever, forever."
    Frivolous conversations with her nieghbors checked her
    progress towards perfection, "Goodness comes through
    commune with god." She was shamefully violated by a tramp.
                        "Your Pride. Your craven selfish indulence.
                          Bewail your failures in selfdenial."
    In her thirty first year she became a Carmelite nun. A vision
    showed her the very place in hell to which her own faults
    would have led her, and she lived ever after in deep distrust
    of the self. She died October 5, 1582.
                            "To be happy. I will abandon you."


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