Teresa of Avila Quotes
We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can - namely, surrender our will and fulfill God's will in us.
Teresa, of Avila. Interior Castle. Translated by E. Allison Peers, Image Books, 1961, p. 45.
Husayn Ali Nuri. This quotation illustrates one of the reasons that the Muslim Iranian fundamentalists are so fearful of Bahai, a reform offshoot of Islam. For the orthodox Muslim there must be no separation of church and state—they are one and the same. The Bahai minority of Iran have been hunted down and in many cases killed on the grounds that they were heretics and blasphemers.
Teresa of Ávila, born Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada, also called Saint Teresa of Jesus, was a Spanish noblewoman who felt called to convent life in the Catholic Church. A Carmelite nun, prominent Spanish mystic, religious reformer, author, theologian of the contemplative life and of mental prayer, she earned the rare distinction of being declared a Doctor of the Church, but not until over four centuries after her death. Active during the Catholic Reformation, she reformed the Carmelite Orders of both women and men. The movement she initiated was later joined by the younger Spanish Carmelite friar and mystic John of the Cross. It led eventually to the establishment of the Discalced Carmelites. A formal papal decree adopting the split from the old order was issued in 1580.
