You’re referring, I believe, to St. Peter Alcantara, one of her two primary spiritual directors (there were many, but he and a Jesuit whose name currently escapes me were the two most prominent in her life and the ones most supportive of her uncensored work. John of the Cross actually was only her spiritual director for a very brief time. Despite their eternal coincidence of lives, they actually personally interacted relatively very little. It was Teresa, however, who really convinced John to remain a Carmelite when he began considering going elsewhere, and the two of them obviously were instrumental in the Carmelite reforms…great, there I go again

By the way, if anyone is interested in Teresa, Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury of the Anglican Church, actually has a wonderful biography on her, simply titled Teresa of Avila. It is extremely insightful, and he is himself a great scholar of Carmelite spirituality. This time surrounding her feast would be a great time to read it

Michael, I love the embedded meanings and ironies in Teresa’s writing. If memory serves, she and her other priest friend – am not recalling his name but he was her primary spiritual director before St John of the Cross – often flew below the radar in their deeply spiritual and loving and strategic communications by using other names for each other. Jean

One of the most profound discoveries that St. Teresa made aware in me is the primary importance of self-knowledge in the spiritual life. Teresa wrote often that humility is nothing else but self-knowledge, and that it is knowledge of self that truly leads to knowledge of God, as God is the ground of our being, and when we enter deep within ourselves and come to know ourselves more fully, we discover the union with God that exists in every human soul (and dare I say, this was quite an Augustinian discovery of Teresa’s, as it was Augustine who prayed, “Lord, let me know myself, that I may know you.” Of course, I can turn anything into an Augustinian discovery

Aside from her tremendous insight into the spiritual life, what a wonderful role model she offers for women. Often lost in Teresa’s writings is the tremendous sense of irony that she employed. She was frequently navigating the censors of the Inquisition, and so often she would write things like, “But certainly the learned men know more than me, as I am stupid.” We often think she is being self-deprecating there, but in fact she is usually being ironic. She is saying, “I am a woman, and I am smarter and know better than most of you educated men.”

Anyway, I can go on forever about St. Teresa, but I’ll leave that to you Thanks for this series of posts. Take care!