Teresa

Mother Teresa of Calcutta was the founder of the Missionaries ofCharity and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, but her story is so much moreremarkable. From her childhood in the Balkans to her work in India, from attendingthe victims of war-torn Beirut to pleading with George Bush and Saddam Husseinto choose peace over war, Mother Teresa was driven by a mighty faith. Newly revised and updated, this edition includes a personal insight into thebeatification and continuing process of canonization for Mother Teresa, theongoing work of the Missionaries of Charity, and her “dark night of the soul.” Mother Teresa consistently claimed that she was simply responding to Christ’sboundless love for her and for all of humanity, bringing to the world a great lessonin joyful and selfless love. This book is a glimpse into her extraordinary faith,work, and life.

She was a saint, a mystic, a reformer, a legend, and she was a fascinating and complex woman. This is the first full-scale biography of Saint Teresa of Avila from a human, nonconfessional point of view. Victoria Lincoln immersed herself thoroughly in all of Saint Teresa's writings, including her extensive correspondence. She has reconstructed the inner life of this rigorous reformer of the Carmelite Order and disciplined explorer of mystical experience. The relation between Saint Teresa's inner and outer life is defined with new insight and profundity.

This innovative book offers an original insight into the context and times of St Teresa of Avila (1515 – 1582) as well as exploring her contemporary relevance from the perspective of some of the foremost thinkers and scholars in the Teresian field today including Professors Julia Kristeva, Rowan Williams and Bernard McGinn. As well as these academic approaches there will be chapters by friars and nuns of the Carmelite order living out the Carmelite charism in today’s world. The book addresses both theory and practice, and crosses traditional disciplinary and denominational boundaries – including medieval studies, philosophy, psychology, pastoral and systematic theology - thus demonstrating her continuing relevance in a variety of contemporary multi-disciplinary areas.

St. Teresa of Avila, one of the most interesting and important figures in the history of the Catholic Church, was also one of the most candid, entertaining, and brilliant correspondents of her century. This selection of letters offers a unique “behind the scenes” look at this most charming Doctor of the Church with details of her life not originally meant for the public. St. Teresa’s formal works—The Interior Castle and The Way of Perfection—were written with an eye toward censors. Her personal correspondence, however, tell the story of her life in vivid detail, including her struggles to reform the Carmelite order; Spanish mysticism in its formation; and the extraordinary range of relationships she maintained with priests, theologians, royalty, fellow religious, advisors, and friends. The letters begin when St. Teresa was forty-six—six years after she entered the Carmelite Monastery of the Incarnation in Avila, Spain—and continue until her death twenty-one years later. She exhibits worries, troubles, sadness, joy, triumphs, and questions throughout. Recipients of these letters, and the people discussed in them, include some of the famous and fascinating figures of late sixteenth-century Catholic Europe: St. John of the Cross; María Enríquez de Toledo y Guzmán, the Duchess of Alba; St. Peter Alcantara; St. John of Avila; Ana de Mendoza, the Princess of Eboli; and Jerónimo Gracián de la Madre de Dios. The story these letters tell is one of enduring importance to the history of the Church. From nascent beginnings to more detailed plans, it is possible throughout St. Teresa of Avila: Her Life in Letters to witness the birth of Spanish mysticism, the reform of the Carmelite Order, and the experiences of contemplative prayer and meditation that resulted in The Interior Castle.

Most people living in the last quarter of the twentieth century knew Mother Teresa by name and appearance. They could also identify her as the saint of the gutters of Calcutta. Two years after her death, she was still recognized as “the most admired person of the century.” So, what is there still to say about her? Quite a bit, as it turns out. The story of both her public and private lives remains little known, and we continue to grapple with the extraordinary things she did, as well as the way that she interpreted the vocation of any would-be follower of Jesus. This biography shows Mother Teresa as the first great saint of television. We came to know her on the screen, and, as such, we felt we knew her in a way that we could not have known the saints before her. Presented in three parts, this biography looks at the preparation, the call, and the legacy of the extraordinary woman whom Pope Francis named Saint Teresa of Calcutta in 2016.

This book presents two prose works written by Teresa de Cartagena: Grove of the infirm (Arbolea de los enfermos) and Wonder at the works of God (Admiración operum Dey).

Teresa de Ahumada y Cepeda-later known, by her choice, as Teresa of Jesus and now as St. Teresa of Ávila-was, above all, a woman who searched for an encounter with God, and her search was not in vain. Once she encountered God, she wanted nothing more than to put him at the center of her life and proclaim his greatness. Teresa's objective in writing was to teach her nuns the way of prayer utilizing her own "systematized" experience. However, as a woman writer, Teresa had to confront misogynistic forces by unmasking them down to their very roots. As a skilled teacher of the spiritual life, Teresa knew how to spot inner resistances and movements to listen to and follow God's call. At the same time, she considered the inner dynamics that generate the process of relationship with God, making her writing a sixteenth-century treatment of psychology. In her feminine humanity, Teresa supports a relational perspective. Teresa of Jesus: Woman, Prophet, Mystic, looks at relationships as a point of encounter and dialogue between Teresian spiritual theology and psychology. In the first part, Sister María Rosaura reveals St. Teresa's feminine humanity by studying her life within her sixteenth-century historical context. The second part turns to Teresa's masterwork, The Interior Castle, and analyzes the union between the soul and God from Teresa's feminine relational perspective established in the first part. By drawing close to Teresa's life, this book enables readers to drink from a spiritual fount that always yields fresh water.