Beginnings.

Teresa of Avila was a Christian saint, mystic, religious reformer, and author of several religious tracts. Teresa de Ahumeda y Cepeda was born in Avila, in Castile, Spain, in 1515. As a child she demonstrated deep spirituality. Attending boarding school in a convent as a teenager, she began to think about becoming a nun. In 1535 she entered the Convent of the Incarnation and remained there for twenty-eight years until she founded her own reformed convent. Life in the Convent of the Incarnation was not particularly difficult or demanding. Reading St. Augustine's Confessions (400?) led her to desire a more disciplined, rigorous life; in her intense personal prayer she experienced what she called "intellectual visions and locutions."

Founding Convents.

Seven years after these visions she left the convent to create a new one. Teresa argued that she had been told to do so in...