St. Teresa of Avila
She complained to God directly, and the reply is the famous part.
Teresa spent twenty years as a fairly ordinary nun in a comfortable Spanish convent where people visited and gossiped and nothing much happened. Then she decided the whole system needed rebuilding, and she spent the rest of her life on the road starting seventeen new monasteries, in her fifties and sixties, in poor health, on bad roads.
The story everyone tells is from one of those journeys. Her cart tipped and dumped her in the mud in a river, and she said to God, if this is how You treat Your friends, no wonder You have so few.
She is one of the great writers on prayer, and she is also very funny, which is rarer. She told her sisters that a sad nun is a bad nun, and she once wrote that God walks among the pots and pans.
St. Teresa of Avila facts for kids
- The first woman ever named a Doctor of the Church, in 1970
- She founded 17 monasteries, mostly after the age of 50
- Her book The Interior Castle is still one of the most-read works on prayer
- God walks among the pots and pans is hers
Feast day: October 15 · Patron of Spain and people who are unwell
The General Roman Calendar lists her as Teresa of Jesus.
St. Teresa, help me talk to God as honestly as you did.