St. Teresa couldn't roll over — then she knelt with no help

ALBA DE TORMES, this week, October 1582 AD — Saint Teresa of Ávila could not turn from one side to the other in her bed unless someone turned her. She was sixty-seven. Since September 29, 1582 AD, she had been in bed at the Carmelite convent in Alba de Tormes.

She was never meant to be in Alba at all. St. Teresa had founded seventeen convents of Carmelite nuns in twenty years, and her own was St Joseph’s at Ávila. In September she was on her way back there. Then the Duchess of Alba asked her to come to Alba instead. The duchess’s son’s wife was about to have a baby. The duchess wanted St. Teresa there to bring a blessing on the birth.

St. Teresa didn’t want to go. But Father Antonio de Jesús, the friar who could tell her where to go, ordered her to Alba. She had obeyed her superiors all her life, and she obeyed him. She reached Alba on September 20. The baby had already been born.

For eight days she got up at the usual hour and heard Mass, though the doctors said she could not get better. Then, during Mass on September 29, she suddenly got worse. She asked for a small room upstairs. It had a little window that looked down on the high altar, so she could hear Mass from there.

In that room she worried about how poor St Joseph’s at Ávila was. “How shall we get the nuns bread to eat?” St. Teresa kept saying. She told the sister who nursed her: “Mind, my daughter, as soon as you see that I am a little better, you are to get a carriage, put me in it, and take me back to Avila.”

One morning, after a night with little sleep, she sent for Father Antonio to hear her confession. Afterwards he went down on his knees in front of all the nuns. He begged her to ask God not to take her so soon. St. Teresa answered him: “Hush, Father, why do you ask me such a thing? There is no more need of me in this world.”

Candles, and a bell

Later that week, at five o’clock in the afternoon, St. Teresa asked for Viaticum. The nuns dressed her in her veil and white cloak. They set lights burning around the room and knelt around the bed, each holding a candle.

The priest was slow to come. While the nuns waited, St. Teresa joined her hands and cried. She asked the nuns to forgive her for the bad example she had set them. They wept and prayed without speaking until they heard the bell that meant the priest was coming with Communion.

For two days it had taken two nuns to lift St. Teresa in her bed. But when she saw Communion carried through the door, she got up quickly and knelt on the mattress. Nobody helped her. She moved as if she would throw herself out of the bed, and the nuns had to hold her. Her face was flushed and looked much younger than her age. With her hands joined, she said: “O my Bridegroom, my Master! at last the longed-for hour has come! now it is time for us to see one another! My Master, it is time to set forth! Blessed be this hour, and may Thy will be done!”

She wanted to say more. But her superior ordered her to stop talking, so that she would not hurt herself, and she stopped. After Communion she thanked God again and again. The nuns heard her repeat: “After all, Lord, I am a child of the Church!” At nine o’clock that night she received Extreme Unction.

Then Father Antonio asked her where she wanted to be buried. Should her body be taken home to Ávila, or left at Alba? The question annoyed her, and it showed on her face. St. Teresa answered: “What, my Father, is that for me to decide? Have I anything of my own? Will they not give me a little earth here?”