Customer Reviews

Teresa: A Woman : A Biography of Teresa of Avila (Suny Series in Cultural Perspectives)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A novelist most of her career, the late Victoria Lincoln spent years writing this carefully researched and intuitive portrait of the greatest of Catholic Saints (my own opinion)and the founder of the discalced Carmelite order of nuns. Teresa was poorly understood in her own time, and canonized for the wrong reasons, which is why she continues to be misunderstood by most people today. In a recent book on leadership, Garry Wills referred to her in a dismissive manner that revealed his own ignorance of her life, an ignorance promoted by the very church that claims to revere her. Working from Teresa's writings, including her letters (and reading skillfully between the lines) Lincoln convinces the reader that here was a human being for all times, a woman of very human impulses and emotions who transcended her limitations to explore the very nature of faith, asking questions of herself that would terrify most of today's public "Christians". She also had to face the constant threat of the Inquisition, who on more than one occasion came close to condemning a woman who would someday become an icon of the Spanish Church, along with her friend John of the Cross. The book is so painstaking in its recreation of Teresa's life that it can be difficult to follow at times. Lincoln not only has to tell a story but to make a case for her interpretation of it, but her humor and empathy, the quality of her research, and the painful beauty of her prose more than reward the reader for persistance. Some Catholics may be shocked at the revelations in the book (Teresa may have been less than chaste as a novice, and was falsely suspected of sexual misconduct later on), but this is no tawdry expose but an honest look at a woman who in spite of her conviction of her own unworthiness, strove for an ever closer communion with God, without ever losing sight of her humanity. You should meet her; read this book.

For any who want to understand the times and culture that Teresa of Avila lived her life in, this book fills in those details. While for many, the details may be more than they wish for, they make clear the humanity of Teresa and all she lived through in those times. While Teresa became far more human to me reading this book, not one drop of admiration for her was lost. Teresa has blessed my life and continues to do so. Thanks to the author.