Midway through October, the church turns to a Spanish mystic for inspiration and intercession.
Teresa of Avila was born in northern Spain in the 16th Cent and joined the Carmelite convent as a young woman. She developed a deep and intense prayer life which prompted her to seek a more radical way to follow Christ in prayer. She founded a new community whose life of prayer was wrapped in poverty and simplicity — the Discalced Carmelites.
Santa Teresa’s best known quotation is:
“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”
She died on 15 October 1582.
