St. Teresa of Ávila, the Spanish mystic, was born of an aristocratic family in Ávila. In 1535 she entered a Carmelite convent there and four years later was prostrated by a long illness, probably of psychological origin. However, she had already felt the call to contemplation, and at about the age of forty, after a long struggle, she received a second "conversion," which turned her toward an intense practice of contemplation. Her order was relatively lax in its rules, and she felt impelled to begin a reform. In 1562 a reformed convent was established in Ávila under her direction. After five years, despite ill health and official opposition, she began energetically to spread the reform to other parts of Spain. She died in 1582, after a three-year illness. Her main works were her Life (1562–1565), The Way of Perfection (1565), and...