ST TERESA OF AVILA

Grant that we may always be nourished.
By the food of Saint Teresa’s heavenly teaching.
For long years prior to her great task she meditated.
She was not satisfied just with writing.

She discarded the easy path and founded the Discalced Carmelites.
Shoeless signifies a commitment to poverty.
This was a movement of duties not rights.
Of mercy and charity.

Yet with St John of the Cross, hounded.
And persecuted.
Her convents closed.
Her reformist views rejected.

To God she said, if this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few, she died exhausted.
Saint and Doctor of the Church now she is vindicated.