Happy Birthday - St. Teresa of Avila

Teresa was born in Avila, Spain on 28 March, 1515. St. Teresa was soft-hearted and mystic. Some believe her life's story is greatly exaggerated, but others hold on to her story as truth. St. Teresa is known for her writings, including The Way of Perfection and Interior Castle. While Luther & Calvin played influential roles in the Protestant Reformation, St. Teresa was a leader in the Counter-Reformation within the Catholic Church. St. Teresa's life was marked by prayer and learning to love God and others - timeless wisdom about Christian living basics.

You can't help but love the dedication of nuns. Maybe it's that all of them seem to beam from ear to ear with compassion. Or maybe it's simply because they're in the business of serving Jesus Christ. Most ordinary people just aren't that content, happy, or sincere.
Before entering the convent, most nuns have to study the lives of influential people from the past. Many of those aspiring nuns learn a great deal about St. Teresa of Avila, one of the most famous nuns in the history of the Catholic Church. Non-Catholics might recall learning about St. Teresa while studying Christian history in church or school. It is her words here that usually move people to want to know more about this great Christian conqueror:

Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours, no feet but yours;
yours are the eyes through which Christ's compassion looks
out on the world,
yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good
and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.

These simple words are quite intriguing when you consider that St. Teresa lived a very humble and modest life. In other words, this nun lived what she preached. It doesn't take long to discover that St. Teresa was quite the ambassador for Christ in sixteenth-century Europe.

- from 20 Things You Should Read. Written by Matthew Paul Turner.
for more, visit St. Teresa's Wikipedia page.