Saint Theresa of Jesus

 A little more walked in my faith, than in other trips, this I addressed from the beginning as a Pilgrimage.

Although it was a trip that I would share with friends, we knew it was a special trip where we were all looking for something inside of us. It was so we left from the city of Salamanca to Ávila, where this Saint was baptized and began his fruitful work. When we arrived we stayed in a hotel inside the walled city, and that same night we went out to visit it, without being able to see the sites outside, but this helped us to locate the next day. It is morning we begin with the cerebration of the mass in the same Church where the Saint was baptized, and then we go to the first Convent she creates. Before moving forward with this, I would like to comment that the Holy Youth entrance to the Carmelite Convent, and after many years of convent life and contemplative prayer could not feel full, believed that something was not right. Specifically, she did not like the freedom they had inside the convent, with cells that she considered luxurious. It was so that she began to think about the reform, and with the support of San Juan de la Cruz, they managed to change the name of their congregation that from now on would be called Discalced Carmelites, and they would live in closure in a great poverty dedicated to contemplative prayer. It was with this new constitution that the Conent of the Encarnación in Ávila founded, which is the one we met below.

The visit itself shows the place as a museum, but one must see and imagine beyond what the eyes perceive, that is, for example imagine the Saint sleeping in a very small cell a large part of her life, or To use a very hard tree trunk as a pillow, this point out to just think that this Santa, in order to try to flagellate her body, submitted to these physical pains, all because of her immense love for Jesus.

It is still hard to understand and cause great admiration as a person can in these conditions dedicate his life to Jesus, dedicate himself to writing about him, expressing his love in the well-known poem “Nada te Turbe …”

In this place you can see the confessional, where they have seen both saints, San Juan de la Cruz, (Confessor of the Convent) and Santa Teresa de Avila, levitating.

That’s how a little bit Santa was getting into our lives. So much so that later we decided to go to a second town where she dies, this town is close to Salamanca and is called Tormes.

Teresa was a friend of the Dukes of Alba whose residence was in the city of Tormes, there she founded another convent (they were a few convents founded by herself in Spain), and all were governed by the reform written by Teresa, in conjunction with San Juan de la Cruz.

Between so much trip that the Santa realized founding convents, she became ill and she herself, knowing that her remaining days in the Earth would not be too many decides to return to Tormes. But before reaching destination, he dies.

Tormes is a small town, but at the same time with a great holiness, it is the place of pilgrimage of the Teresians, in fact it is where the Teresian Jubilee is celebrated.

There are two small chapels there, one in honor of San Juan de la Cruz, where we had our cerebration of the Holy Mass and another that is part of the Convent founded here by Santa Teresa.

The latter is somewhat more austere, but two glass chests on the altar are striking. Being here you can not stop going inside the convent, which is only 50 meters from these two chapels.

When entering the same one has a part of museum, but allows to enter the interior of the Chapel on the high part, that is to say behind the altar, where the emotion of what one finds there is inexplicable.

We’ll come back to this, but first I’d like to tell you something about Santa Teresa. After her death, she is buried in this Convent (Annunciation in Alba de Tormes) but the coffin was opened several times and they noticed that the body of the saint was immaculate. After discovering this, the body moved through several Spanish cities, even relics of it disappeared, until it returned to the place that the Saint chose for her eternal rest, that is, Tormes. Returning to the visit one arrives, from the museum, to the back of the altar where there is an artistic chest with three large locks, which keep the impure remains of the Saint, as an anecdote to open the chest the three keys must be turned to the same time, and these three are in the hands of two people united in some way to the Teresian religiosity distributed in Spain. But the most exciting of the visit is over this chest, a few lines above mentioned that on the altar were two glass chests, they contain the heart and the arm of the impolite Saint. This is, to this day, one of the most exciting things I saw in my life, is to see how all her love for Jesus is reflected in her heart, is to imagine the Saint next to her beloved Lord. Continuing the visit you can enter the cell where she slept and died, you can see spills and original writings of Teresa, as well as the confessional of San Juan de la Cruz.   

Traveler Tips

• Avila is a big city, if possible spend more than a day in it, and sleep inside the walled part. When visiting the Convento de Ávila, imagine how it would be to sleep on the trunk that Santa Teresa used as a pillow. 
• Tormes is a small town, it is only 20 km from Salamanca, it is convenient to sleep in this city, to cross it, since it is very beautiful, and from there to get closer to Tormes.
• In Salamanca there are religious places (not Saints) that can be visited and of great interest. 
• Near Salamanca there are other Teresian places that I did not know.

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