In addition to Happy Birthday, that is!
St. Francis de Sales had a great admiration for St Teresa and mentions her many times in his writings.
This year the Carmelites are celebrating St Teresa’s 500th anniversary of birth in many substantial ways.
We join them by remembering some of the ways St Francis de Sales wrote of her.
He speaks of her nuns’ obedience in his Conference X111 on the Spirit of the Rules, including some light-hearted references!
“The blessed Mother St. Teresa tells us that her daughters were so absolutely exact in their obedience,that their Superiors had to be very careful not to bid them do anything that would not be a good thing to do, because, without any further exhortation,they would instantly set to work to do it. Further-more, in order to observe their Rules more perfectly,they were most punctilious in carrying out the smallest details. She tells us that on one occasion one of her daughters, not having understood distinctly what a Superior had desired her to do,said so ; whereupon the Superior replied somewhat abruptly and inconsiderately : ” Go and put your head into a well and then you will understand.”The Nun was so ready and eager to obey that, if they had not stopped her, she would actually have thrown herself in . There is certainly less difficulty in observing the Rules exactly than in being willing to observe them only in part.”