TESTIMONY 1
1. Addressed to Pedro Ibáñez, O.P. See Life 33.4–6.
2. Concerning this illness of St. Teresa, see Life 7.11; 40.20; Spiritual Testimonies 22.2.
3. See Life 25.14.
TESTIMONY 2
1. Written for Pedro Ibáñez, O.P.
2. This improvement came while she was staying with Doña Luisa de la Cerda. See Life 34.3–5.
TESTIMONY 3
1. Written for García de Toledo, O.P.
2. She is referring to the foundation of St. Joseph’s at Ávila. See Life 32.14–15.
3. Gal 2:20.
4. Domingo Bañez, O.P. A kind of epilogue to the previous testimonies, this section (Spiritual Testimonies 3.13) is preceded by the symbol IHS.
5. Mancio de Corpus Christi, O.P., a noted Dominican theologian who taught theology for sixteen years at the University of Alcalá and for eleven at that of Salamanca.
TESTIMONY 4
1. Historians have looked upon this obscure account as referring to a prophecy about St. Teresa’s death. However, if twenty-one more years of her life remained, she would have died in 1590; whereas she died in 1582.
TESTIMONY 5
1. She is referring to Martín Ramírez, a merchant from Toledo, through whose charitable bequest she was able to make the foundation at Toledo. See Foundations 15.16.
TESTIMONY 6
1. St. Teresa was doubtful about making foundations in small towns, since she would then be forced to accept endowments for their support. See Foundations 9.2.
2. Job 16:2.
3. See Foundations chapter 3.
TESTIMONY 7
1. See Life 34.10.
TESTIMONY 9
1. See Life 20.5 and note 5 in the same chapter.
TESTIMONY 11
1. St. Teresa inaugurated her Carmel in Alba on January 25, 1571.See Foundations 20.14. On February 2, she went back to Salamanca, and it was most probably there that she received this favor.
TESTIMONY 12
1. This was written for her confessor Martín Gutiérrez, S.J., who was rector of the Jesuit house in Salamanca. He helped Teresa with the foundation she made in that city. See Foundations 18.1.
2. The sister who sang was Isabel de Jesús (Jimena). See Interior Castle 6.11.8–10.
3. See Lk 2:35.
TESTIMONY 13
1. Jn 14:23.
2. See Interior Castle 7.1.6
3. See Life 23, note 7.
TESTIMONY 14
1. See Spiritual Testimonies 13
2. June 30, 1571.
TESTIMONY 15
1. See Life 40.21.
2. Titus 2:5, 1 Cor 14:34.
TESTIMONY 16
1. July 10, 1571.
2. Agustín de Ahumada, who went to South America in 1544 and served the king in Peru and Chile. Later he served as governor of Tucumán, Argentina. He did not return to Spain until after Teresa’s death.
3. The reference is to her reluctance to accept the appointment as prioress of the Incarnation made by the Apostolic Visitor, Pedro Fernández, O.P. See Foundations 21.1.
TESTIMONY 19
1. See Foundations 28.21–36.
TESTIMONY 20
1. Song 4:16.
TESTIMONY 21
1. She is speaking of a painting given her by the countess of Osorno, Doña María de Velasco, a friend of hers who lived in Valladolid. The painting is still preserved at St. Joseph’s of Ávila.
2. When she took possession of her office as prioress of the Incarnation, October 14, 1571, she placed a statue of Our Lady of Clemency in the prioress’s stall with the keys to the monastery in its hands.
TESTIMONY 25
1. Lk 1:47.
2. She is probably referring to Father Martín Gutiérrez, S.J., rector of the Jesuit college in Salamanca. See Spiritual Testimonies 12, note 1.
TESTIMONY 28
1. This is a probable reference to an event reported by Yepes in his life of St. Teresa. One day in Toledo, Teresa was envying St. Mary Magdalene for the love our Lord had for her. The Lord then appeared to Teresa and said: “While I was on earth, I took her for my friend; but now that I am in heaven, I have chosen you.”
TESTIMONY 29
1. See Spiritual Testimonies 13 and 14.
TESTIMONY 31
1. In May 1572, the Apostolic Visitor, Pedro Fernández, O.P., at the request of St. Teresa, sent St. John of the Cross to Ávila to be confessor to the nuns at the Incarnation.
TESTIMONY 32
1. Mt 17:1–9.
2. Lk 2:34–35.
3. Jn 13:16.
TESTIMONY 33
1. Ex 14:5–31.
TESTIMONY 34
1. This incomplete testimony is almost certainly spurious. She was in Beas from February to May in 1575.
TESTIMONY 35
1. This is a rough draft concerning the vow of obedience she made to her superior and director, Father Gratian
2. She arrived in Ecija, Andalusia, on her way to Seville.
3. See Life 38.9.
TESTIMONY 36
1. Ps 147:14.
2. May 23, 1575, in the hermitage of St. Anne.
3. See Life 38.9; Spiritual Testimonies 64.
4. See Letters, to Gratian, Jan. 9, 1577.
TESTIMONY 37
1. See Spiritual Testimonies 28.
TESTIMONY 38
1. Eliseus is a pseudonym St. Teresa used in referring to Father Gratian.
TESTIMONY 39
1. Song 5:1.
2. According to Father Gratian, she is referring here to the feast of The Presentation of Our Lady in the Temple.
TESTIMONY 40
1. See Spiritual Testimonies 14.
TESTIMONY 41
1. Her brothers Lorenzo and Pedro arrived at the port of Sanlúcar upon their return from the Americas on August 12, 1575. She is referring to her brother, Lorenzo, who brought his children with him.
2. See Foundations 25.3.
3. See Constitutions (Ávila 1567), on enclosure.
TESTIMONY 45
1. She is speaking of a monastery of Calced Carmelite nuns in Paterna and its reform by some nuns from her Carmel in Seville.
TESTIMONY 46
1. See Interior Castle 6.5.6.
TESTIMONY 49
1. Mt 16:16.
TESTIMONY 51
1. 1 Cor 10:31.
TESTIMONY 53
1. Allusion to the accusation made against her to the Inquisition of Seville by María del Corro. See Spiritual Testimonies 58, note 1.
2. Father Gratian. This letter has been lost.
3. 1 Cor 10:13.
4. Because of his duties as Apostolic Visitor, Father Gratian had to be absent from Seville most of the time.
5. In this devotional tradition, the fifth agony represented Christ in the arms of his Blessed Mother after he had been taken down from the cross.
TESTIMONY 54
1. She is referring to Father Gratian. as in Spiritual Testimonies 50.
TESTIMONY 55
1. The brief concerned the visitation of the Calced Carmelites of Andalusia.
2. Probable allusion to Spiritual Testimonies 39.
TESTIMONY 56
1. Lk 1:47. See Spiritual Testimonies 39.
TESTIMONY 58
1. This is addressed to Rodrigo Alvarez, S.J., who became Teresa’s spiritual director when she was in Seville for her foundation there. When María del Corro was dismissed from her Carmelite community in Seville, she reported St. Teresa and her nuns to the tribunal of the Inquisition in Seville as Illuminists. The Inquisition entrusted the investigation to its consultants, Rodrigo Alvarez and Enrique Enríquez, both Jesuits. According to the procedures, after presenting to Teresa the accusations made against her, they requested her answers in writing. For more details see Enrique Llamas Martinez, O.C.D., Santa Teresa de Jesús y la Inquisición española (Madrid: CSIC, 1972).
2. Antonio Araoz, S.J. was sent to Spain by St. Ignatius of Loyola in 1541. He met St. Teresa in Ávila.
3. St. Francis Borgia. See Life 24.3; Way of Perfection, 31.5.
4. One of the Society’s foremost administrators, Giles González Dávila, was in contact with St. Teresa for a number of years, especially while she was prioress at the Incarnation, 1571–1574.
5. Father Baltasar Alvarez, S.J., while still in his twenties, became St. Teresa’s confessor and guided her from 1559 to 1564. He was at the time rector at St. Giles in Ávila. See Life 28.14–16.
6. Gaspar de Salazar, S.J., was helpful both materially and spiritually to St. Teresa while he was rector for a short while in Ávila in 1561. Disagreements with the bishop of Ávila led to his removal early in 1562. Later he was rector in Toledo and in Cuenca, where in 1575 he was removed from office for undue harshness.
7. Luis de Santander, S.J., was founder and rector of the Jesuit College at Segovia and helped St. Teresa make her foundation there in 1574.
8. Jerónimo Martínez de Ripalda, S.J., is best known as the author of a famous catechism. He was Teresa’s confessor at Salamanca. It was at his command that she began to write her Foundations.
9. Pablo Hernández, S.J., helped St. Teresa with her foundation in Toledo in 1569.
10. Juan Ordóñez, S.J., was a spiritual advisor to St. Teresa when he was rector in Ávila.
11. St. Peter of Alcántara, founder of a Franciscan reform, first met St. Teresa in Ávila in 1558. See Life 27.16–20; 30.2–7.
12. Francisco de Soto y Salazar was at first Canon of Ávila, then Inquisitor at Córdoba, Seville, and Toledo. Later, from 1571 to 1578, he was bishop of Salamanca. See Life 40.16
13. St. John of Ávila (1500–1569) was born in Almodóvar del Campo, studied at Alcalá and Salamanca, and became known as the Apostle of Andalusia because of the great amount of preaching he did in that area.
14. She is referring to The Book of Her Life.
15. The Way of Perfection.
16. Vicente Barrón, O.P. was a consultant to the Inquisition and confessor of Teresa’s father. He was her confessor in her early years and again from March, 1569 to August, 1570, when she made her foundation in Toledo. See Life 5, note 3; 7, note 8.
17. Domingo Bañez, O.P., was a professor of theology at St. Thomas College in Ávila. He was Teresa’s confessor from 1561 to 1567, and assisted her in her first foundation. Later, he was rector of St. Gregory’s College in Valladolid from 1573 to 1577.
18. Diego de Chaves, O.P., at one time confessor to Philip II, was rector of St. Thomas in Ávila, where he met St. Teresa.
19. Pedro Ibáñez, O.P., was professor of theology at St. Thomas in Ávila, where he met St. Teresa. He was one of those who told her to write her Life, and he helped her in founding her first monastery of St. Joseph. Later, he retired to a more solitary monastery in the province of León. See Life 32.16–17; 33.4–6.
20. García de Toledo, O.P., was a nephew of the count of Oropesa. He went to Mexico where he joined the Dominicans in 1535. He returned to Spain in 1545. St. Teresa sent him the first redaction of her Life, and he ordered her to add an account of the foundation of St. Joseph (in the second redaction), all of which he corrected together with her Way of Perfection. See Life 34.6–16.
21. Bartolomé de Medina, O.P., was professor of theology at Salamanca. At one time he was very critical of St. Teresa, but later became one of her strong supporters.
22. Felipe de Meneses, O.P., was rector of St. Gregory’s in Valladolid, where he met St. Teresa. He was her confessor there from 1567 to 1569.
23. Juan de Salinas, O.P., was a famous preacher and for many years provincial of his order.
24. Diego de Yanguas, O.P., was a renowned preacher and theologian. While prior in Segovia, he became St. Teresa’s confessor there. In collaboration with him and Gratian, she revised her Interior Castle. It was he who ordered her to burn her manuscript of commentary on the Song of Songs; he thought it unsuitable for a woman to write on this theme.
25. Her Life.
26. Reference to the Inquisition. See the introduction to her Life.
TESTIMONY 59
1. This testimony was also probably written for Rodrigo Alvarez, S.J., not in his capacity as consultant to the Inquisition, but as her spiritual director.
2. She speaks of a kind that comes before this “first prayer” in Spiritual Testimonies 59.25.
3. St. Francis Borgia, S.J. See Life 24.3.
4. In Spiritual Testimonies 59.19, she states that the wound of love, the prayer described in Spiritual Testimonies 59.17–18 precedes the raptures.
5. See Life 18.2.
6. St. John of Ávila. His letter to St. Teresa was written on September 12, 1568.
7. Diego de Acosta, S.J., was at the time provincial in Andalusia. See Spiritual Testimonies 21.2.
TESTIMONY 60
1. For a further clarification of what she is speaking of here, see her letter to Gratian from Toledo, September 5, 1576. The confessors she refers to here are the Jeronimite, Diego de Yepes, and Dr. Alonso Velázquez, who was later consecrated a bishop. See also Foundations 30.1; Spiritual Testimonies 65.
TESTIMONY 64
1. See Life 38.9
TESTIMONY 65
1. Addressed to her former confessor at Toledo, Dr. Alonso Velázquez, who at this time was bishop of Osma. In the margin he wrote: “This is a part of an account Mother Teresa sent me about her spirit and method of proceeding.” See Spiritual Testimonies 60, note 1.
2. See Foundations 29.18
3. See Spiritual Testimonies 58, note 17.
4. Ibid., Spiritual Testimonies 58, note 21.
5. Ibid. Spiritual Testimonies 58, notes 2–10.
6. See Song 8:1. The allusion is to some theme or grace known to the bishop but unknown to us.
7. Jn 14:23.