Welcome to our daily rosary meditation. Let's begin in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Let's call to mind all those we've promised to pray for.

Today is the Feast of St. Teresa of Avila.

Along with St. John of the Cross, she is one of the most important teachers about the spiritual life.

She was born in Spain in 1515 and died in 1582.

Teresa and I were blessed to be in Avala on this day in 2015 for her 500th birthday party.

Trisa Vavala, we mean.

Now, when Teresa Vavala was seven, she talked her cousin into running away from home to be

martyred by Muslims.

Thankfully for us, her uncle caught them at the edge of town and brought them back.

Her mother died when she was 14, so she took our lady as her mom.

And at 20, she entered the Carmelite monastery of the incarnation there in Avala.

But at 22, she experienced an illness that left her paralyzed for three and a half years.

She turned to St. Joseph finally, who obtained for her a miraculous healing.

She writes,

I took for my advocate and Lord the glorious St. Joseph and earnestly recommended myself to him.

I saw clearly that as in this need, so in other greater ones concerning honor and loss of soul,

this father and lord of mine came to my rescue in better ways than I knew how to ask for.

I don't recall up to this day ever having petitioned him

for anything that he failed to grant. It is an amazing thing that great many favors God has

granted me through the intercession of Joseph, the dangers I was freed from, both of body and soul.

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