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Hey there, Sprouts.

Today is Friday, October 16th, 2021.

Today is also the feast day of an incredible Spanish saint from the 16th century named Teresa of Avala. Now,. Teresa of Avala was a beautiful young girl who in her early

life was very torn from the things of this world, from going to parties and beautiful dresses.

But she also felt a deep longing to give her life completely to Jesus Christ and live a radically prayerful life.

In the end, of course, the calling of Jesus won out, and she joined the Carmelite Order, even though her parents opposed this decision.

But at the time, the Carmelite order had fallen into just not a very good

condition. Many of the nuns living there didn't really live the life of prayer and

contemplation that they were called to. Instead, the wealthier nuns from wealthier families

lived a pretty comfortable life with really

lavishly decorated apartments and they'd even host parties there. It just was not the life

the St. Teresa of Avalov was called to. So after many years and some really devout prayers

and cool experience of Jesus Christ, she became

a reformer in the Carmelite order, and she is still seen as that today. She eventually

began going from one monastery to another, reforming the entire order, and she called all of her

sisters to a truly contemplative life.

She also has written some beautiful books really about how to be contemplative, how to meet

Christ in prayer. And Mac, thanks to a lot of her work and her writing, we now see her as one of the doctors of the faith,

a person who we can go and read their work and truly understand Christ and understand our beautiful

faith just a little bit better.

Now, for us, all week, we have been talking about how the Catholic Church is so good,

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