The Coming of the Friars
After the second foundation, in Medina del Campo, was accomplished, a very fortuitous event took place in the visiting parlor there. Fr. John of St. Matthias, recently ordained as a Carmelite friar in Medina, came to see Saint Teresa, at her request. She had heard of the promising young friar, perhaps from her friend Fr. Anthony de Heredia, prior at the Carmelite monastery of St. Anne’s in Medina. John was 25 years old; St. Teresa was 52, in the year 1567. Somewhat disillusioned by his experience as a Carmelite, John told Teresa that he was considering joining the Carthusians, an eremitical (hermit) order. But just as our Lord had asked St. Teresa to “wait a little” to see great things, St. Teresa prevailed upon St. John to join the reform. She had been praying for a foundation for friars. The Father General had also wanted this. After visiting with John, it began to seem possible to St. Teresa who always listened closely to God speaking in her heart.
John de Yepes had already suffered much during his childhood. His father, a Spanish aristocrat named Gonzalez of Yepes, was born into a wealthy family of silk merchants from Toledo. Traveling one day to Medina, a prosperous marketing city, he passed through the small town of Fontiveros in the dusty plain of Old Castile. There he met John’s mother Catherine Alvarez, a poor weaver. Catherine was a beautiful and virtuous woman, known for taking unwanted children to priests for baptism, and nursing them at her own breast until she found a suitable home for them. They fell in love and married. But the family of Gonzalez were scandalized by his marriage to a woman they considered beneath his rank, and they disinherited him. The couple took up the weaving trade in Fontiveros.
After the untimely death of John’s father when he was only two years old, Catherine took up residence in Medina where she provided for her children as a weaver.
The small family were desperately poor. The baby, Louis, did not survive his childhood. Catherine placed John in a school for poor children, where he excelled academically. The priest in charge there placed John as an acolyte at a monastery of Augustinian nuns, where he assisted in the sacristy, among other duties. Though academically gifted, John showed no enthusiasm or talent for the various trades offered at the school; however, the head of the hospital in Medina, Don Alonzo Alvarez, took John under his wing, employing him at the hospital for people with contagious diseases as a nurse and alms-collector and, at the age of seventeen, providing for his education at the Jesuit school in Medina, where he engaged in rigorous studies in grammar, rhetoric, Latin and Greek.
This same man offered John a position as chaplain at the hospital after ordination. The newly formed Jesuits in Medina also recognized his talents. But John mysteriously chose to enter the Carmelite monastery in Medina at the age of 21 in 1563, the year after the first foundation of St. Joseph’s in Avila. There is no evidence that he had heard of St. Teresa. He had simply followed his heart to the Carmelites, where contemplative prayer and love of Mary are united.
From Medina, Brother John was sent to Salamanca for further studies as a young Carmelite. Catholic Spain was in her glory, and the University of Salamanca was at that time on a par with the great universities of London and Paris, with studies in Aquinas, Scripture, and the Fathers of the Church, not to mention less traditional avenues of thought such as “the scripturists,” who taught a literal interpretation of Scripture based on the study of language and scientific method, and were held in suspicion by the Inquisition. John’s background in the Spanish and Latin classics, scholasticism, and grammar, contributed to the excellence of his spiritual and poetic writings as a Carmelite mystic.
The meeting of John and Teresa served as a turning point for the reform movement which, until then, had served only a handful of women, many of them poor since St. Teresa did not demand dowries (in fact, three of the four initial founders came without dowries).
The Foundation of Exceptions: Malagon
At the time, the newly established monasteries were still under the jurisdiction of the Carmelite Order of St. Teresa’s profession, governed by the “calced” friars. The word calced, meaning “with shoes,” came to be used later to signify the difference between the two Orders, no doubt an allusion to the practice of enclosure by the new monasteries, known as the discalced. In obedience to her superior, St. Teresa again visited the wealthy daughter of the Duke of Medinaceli, Luisa de la Cerda in Toledo, who prevailed upon Teresa to establish a foundation in her town of Malagon. Saint Teresa did not want a foundation in any place too poor to depend on alms, but Malagon, with the support of Luisa, proved to be the first of seven exceptions. It also proved to be the place where lay sisters (not obligated to assist in choir) were first accepted; where the Sisters were allowed to eat meat; and it was the only foundation that was wholly constructed for the use of the nuns, taking over ten years to complete. The foundation was rapid. Although the nuns had to stay for eight days in Louisa’s castle while the monastery was prepared, on Palm Sunday 1568 they finally made their solemn entrance with a procession together with the people from the church of the town, in their white mantles with veils over their faces, to the new (though still incomplete) monastery, where the Blessed Sacrament was reserved. St. Teresa remained in that town only for two months.
Of the nuns of St. Joseph’s in Medina St. Teresa wrote, “I observed with great consolation how those Sisters were following in the footsteps of the Sisters of St. Joseph’s in Avila through complete religious dedication, sisterly love, and spirituality…. Some of the new ones entering the monastery it seemed the Lord had provided as the kind of cement that is suited to an edifice like this. In these beginning stages, all the good, I think, will be for the sake of the future. For since these Sisters find the path, those who are to come will follow it (Foundations 9:1).”
The Sisters at St Joseph’s in Malagon, as in Avila and Medina, were following the Constitutions drafted by St. Teresa: “I made every effort I could so that none of the nuns would possess anything, but that they would observe the Constitutions in their entirety as in our other monasteries founded in poverty (Foundations 9: 4).”
“He repays our lowly deeds with eternal life:” Valladolid
The fourth foundation, at Valladolid just north of Medina del Campo, came as the gift of a young gentleman whom Teresa does not name, but in fact he was the brother of her bishop Alvaro de Mendoza. Bernardino de Mendoza gave her a house in the city of Valladolid that had a beautiful garden, which pleased her, but it was a quarter of a mile from town, making alms difficult to obtain, and it was near a river, which was not good for the Sisters’ health. However, St. Teresa accepted his offer of good will. A little while later, Bernardino was struck with a deathly illness. Our Lord told St. Teresa that his soul had been in jeopardy, but that his gift to His Mother’s order would be rewarded and that his soul would be released from purgatory at the first Mass offered there. After a second prompting from our Lord, St. Teresa hastened to Valladolid.
Although she had serious doubts about the suitability of the house, she hired men to begin building the walls at once. This is the first mention St. Teresa made in her foundations of walls around the property, a custom that helped to maintain the enclosure of the nuns. However, she does mention a hermitage on the property of St. Joseph’s in Avila (in fact, there were ten), as requested in her Constitutions.
The first Mass there was offered by Fr. Julian of Avila, who attests that he saw St. Teresa go into ecstasy before receiving Communion. She writes that Bernardino appeared at her side, looking joyful and resplendent, and thanked her for what she had done as he left purgatory to go to heaven.
On the feast of our Lady’s Assumption, St. Teresa and three nuns, two of whom were of the first four at St. Joseph’s in Avila (Sr. Antonia of the Holy Spirit and Sr. Maria of the Cross) took possession of the house. Soon afterward, as expected, they all fell sick. The sister of Bernardino and Bishop Alvaro, Maria de Mendoza, came to the rescue by providing alms, and a different house of much greater value and greater suitability. The nuns moved into that house, named for the Conception of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, with “a great procession (Foundations 10:7)” on the feast of St. Blaise.
Another companion of St. Teresa to this somewhat difficult foundation was the young friar John of St. Matthias.
“Where have you hidden, Beloved …?” Spiritual Canticle, St. John of the Cross
Before going to Malagon, St. Teresa had met Fr. John of the Cross and convinced him to help her with the reform. Father Anthony of Jesus was also very enthusiastic. So Saint Teresa began at once to search for the place to begin.
A gentleman of Avila named Don Rafael Mejia Velasquez offered her a house in the tiny farming community of Duruelo, just northeast of Medina del Campo. St. Teresa had to go that way for her foundation in Valladolid, so she went to Duruelo with one companion, Antonia of the Holy Spirit, and Fr. Julian. The community was so tiny it was almost invisible (only about twenty people at the time); the house was used by an administrator to collect grain revenues. It was quite small, comprised of only an entrance, a larger room, a tiny kitchen and a loft. The travelers got hopelessly lost, arriving hot and tired just before nightfall. The house was dirty and full of vermin. Sr. Antonia felt discouraged: “Surely, Mother, there isn’t a soul, however good, who could put up with this. Don’t even consider it (Foundations 13:3).”
But when God wants something, He gives His servants the eyes to see as He does. Saint Teresa saw that the entrance could serve for a chapel, the larger room for sleeping, the loft for a choir. She brought Fr. John with her to Valladolid from Medina, where she taught him the charism as it had been established in the first three foundations. It is worthwhile to note that St. Teresa mentions that this instruction took place during the days before they had established enclosure: Saint Teresa’s strict enclosure did not allow priests or any visitor inside the monastery (Constitutions 15, 16).
What exactly did these two founders and future canonized saints speak of? St. Teresa says, “I taught him about the lifestyle of the Sisters (Foundations 13:5). For St. Teresa this meant “mortification or the style of both our community life and the recreation we have together. The recreation is taken with such moderation that it only serves to reveal the Sisters’ faults and to provide a little relief so that the Rule may be kept in its strictness (Foundations 13:5).” Most likely, these two ardent lovers of God spoke also of prayer, as the famous incident of John and Teresa going into ecstasy in the speakroom is often depicted in paintings (attested to by those who knew them).
“Let us keep before us our true founders, those holy fathers from whom we descend, for we know that by means of that path of poverty and humility they now enjoy God (Foundations 14:4).”
The two friars prayed for and chosen by St. Teresa were undaunted by the condition of the farmhouse in Duruelo. Fr. John went there first to prepare it, but there was not much he could do because they were very poor. Fr. Anthony collected many clocks to keep the Hours, although he may not have even had a bed. A young deacon also came. Fr. Anthony told St. Teresa that upon approaching the new monastery, he was filled with joy, and felt that he had at last left the world behind. He had renounced his priorship at the monastery in Medina. Despite his youthfulness and fragility (St. Teresa had serious doubts about his suitability for the foundation), this man persevered in the Order until his death and even assisted at the deaths of both John and Teresa.
“What little these buildings and exterior comforts do interiorly! Out of love for Him, I ask you, my Sisters and Fathers, that you never fail to be very moderate in this matter of large and magnificent houses (Foundations 14:4).” On the first Sunday of Advent, 1568, the first Mass was offered. Several months later, on her way to Toledo, St. Teresa visited the friars in Duruelo and was moved to devotion at the sight of the poverty and joy in which they were living. She writes that paper skulls and crosses made of sticks were everywhere. In the loft, where the Hours were recited, were two small hermitages, each with a window facing the altar, a stone for a pillow, and much hay for warmth, for it was very cold. She learned that they remained in prayer from Matins in the early morning until after Prime each day, and did not even notice the snow that blew in upon them. The friars did not lack for food, because they went out each day to the neighboring villages to preach. At that time they still did not wear sandals. These barefoot monks were welcomed everywhere they went. Surely it was the warmth of the love of God that warmed them. There were also a young brother and a calced Father joining them for prayer. Before leaving, St. Teresa begged the friars to soften their penitential practices, but they did not seem to pay much heed to her, and she “went away greatly consoled (Foundations 14:12).”
It wasn’t long before a gentleman invited the friars to the town of Mancera where he had built a church to honor a beautiful painting of Mary. Fr. Anthony went to see it, and eventually transferred the foundation to that town in 1570, where it remained until 1600.
“I understood that this foundation was a much greater grace than the favor He granted me to found houses of nuns (Foundations 14:12).”
John de Yepes had already suffered much during his childhood. His father, a Spanish aristocrat named Gonzalez of Yepes, was born into a wealthy family of silk merchants from Toledo. Traveling one day to Medina, a prosperous marketing city, he passed through the small town of Fontiveros in the dusty plain of Old Castile. There he met John’s mother Catherine Alvarez, a poor weaver. Catherine was a beautiful and virtuous woman, known for taking unwanted children to priests for baptism, and nursing them at her own breast until she found a suitable home for them. They fell in love and married. But the family of Gonzalez were scandalized by his marriage to a woman they considered beneath his rank, and they disinherited him. The couple took up the weaving trade in Fontiveros.
After the untimely death of John’s father when he was only two years old, Catherine took up residence in Medina where she provided for her children as a weaver.
The small family were desperately poor. The baby, Louis, did not survive his childhood. Catherine placed John in a school for poor children, where he excelled academically. The priest in charge there placed John as an acolyte at a monastery of Augustinian nuns, where he assisted in the sacristy, among other duties. Though academically gifted, John showed no enthusiasm or talent for the various trades offered at the school; however, the head of the hospital in Medina, Don Alonzo Alvarez, took John under his wing, employing him at the hospital for people with contagious diseases as a nurse and alms-collector and, at the age of seventeen, providing for his education at the Jesuit school in Medina, where he engaged in rigorous studies in grammar, rhetoric, Latin and Greek.
This same man offered John a position as chaplain at the hospital after ordination. The newly formed Jesuits in Medina also recognized his talents. But John mysteriously chose to enter the Carmelite monastery in Medina at the age of 21 in 1563, the year after the first foundation of St. Joseph’s in Avila. There is no evidence that he had heard of St. Teresa. He had simply followed his heart to the Carmelites, where contemplative prayer and love of Mary are united.
From Medina, Brother John was sent to Salamanca for further studies as a young Carmelite. Catholic Spain was in her glory, and the University of Salamanca was at that time on a par with the great universities of London and Paris, with studies in Aquinas, Scripture, and the Fathers of the Church, not to mention less traditional avenues of thought such as “the scripturists,” who taught a literal interpretation of Scripture based on the study of language and scientific method, and were held in suspicion by the Inquisition. John’s background in the Spanish and Latin classics, scholasticism, and grammar, contributed to the excellence of his spiritual and poetic writings as a Carmelite mystic.
The meeting of John and Teresa served as a turning point for the reform movement which, until then, had served only a handful of women, many of them poor since St. Teresa did not demand dowries (in fact, three of the four initial founders came without dowries).
The Foundation of Exceptions: Malagon
At the time, the newly established monasteries were still under the jurisdiction of the Carmelite Order of St. Teresa’s profession, governed by the “calced” friars. The word calced, meaning “with shoes,” came to be used later to signify the difference between the two Orders, no doubt an allusion to the practice of enclosure by the new monasteries, known as the discalced. In obedience to her superior, St. Teresa again visited the wealthy daughter of the Duke of Medinaceli, Luisa de la Cerda in Toledo, who prevailed upon Teresa to establish a foundation in her town of Malagon. Saint Teresa did not want a foundation in any place too poor to depend on alms, but Malagon, with the support of Luisa, proved to be the first of seven exceptions. It also proved to be the place where lay sisters (not obligated to assist in choir) were first accepted; where the Sisters were allowed to eat meat; and it was the only foundation that was wholly constructed for the use of the nuns, taking over ten years to complete. The foundation was rapid. Although the nuns had to stay for eight days in Louisa’s castle while the monastery was prepared, on Palm Sunday 1568 they finally made their solemn entrance with a procession together with the people from the church of the town, in their white mantles with veils over their faces, to the new (though still incomplete) monastery, where the Blessed Sacrament was reserved. St. Teresa remained in that town only for two months.
Of the nuns of St. Joseph’s in Medina St. Teresa wrote, “I observed with great consolation how those Sisters were following in the footsteps of the Sisters of St. Joseph’s in Avila through complete religious dedication, sisterly love, and spirituality…. Some of the new ones entering the monastery it seemed the Lord had provided as the kind of cement that is suited to an edifice like this. In these beginning stages, all the good, I think, will be for the sake of the future. For since these Sisters find the path, those who are to come will follow it (Foundations 9:1).”
The Sisters at St Joseph’s in Malagon, as in Avila and Medina, were following the Constitutions drafted by St. Teresa: “I made every effort I could so that none of the nuns would possess anything, but that they would observe the Constitutions in their entirety as in our other monasteries founded in poverty (Foundations 9: 4).”
“He repays our lowly deeds with eternal life:” Valladolid
The fourth foundation, at Valladolid just north of Medina del Campo, came as the gift of a young gentleman whom Teresa does not name, but in fact he was the brother of her bishop Alvaro de Mendoza. Bernardino de Mendoza gave her a house in the city of Valladolid that had a beautiful garden, which pleased her, but it was a quarter of a mile from town, making alms difficult to obtain, and it was near a river, which was not good for the Sisters’ health. However, St. Teresa accepted his offer of good will. A little while later, Bernardino was struck with a deathly illness. Our Lord told St. Teresa that his soul had been in jeopardy, but that his gift to His Mother’s order would be rewarded and that his soul would be released from purgatory at the first Mass offered there. After a second prompting from our Lord, St. Teresa hastened to Valladolid.
Although she had serious doubts about the suitability of the house, she hired men to begin building the walls at once. This is the first mention St. Teresa made in her foundations of walls around the property, a custom that helped to maintain the enclosure of the nuns. However, she does mention a hermitage on the property of St. Joseph’s in Avila (in fact, there were ten), as requested in her Constitutions.
The first Mass there was offered by Fr. Julian of Avila, who attests that he saw St. Teresa go into ecstasy before receiving Communion. She writes that Bernardino appeared at her side, looking joyful and resplendent, and thanked her for what she had done as he left purgatory to go to heaven.
On the feast of our Lady’s Assumption, St. Teresa and three nuns, two of whom were of the first four at St. Joseph’s in Avila (Sr. Antonia of the Holy Spirit and Sr. Maria of the Cross) took possession of the house. Soon afterward, as expected, they all fell sick. The sister of Bernardino and Bishop Alvaro, Maria de Mendoza, came to the rescue by providing alms, and a different house of much greater value and greater suitability. The nuns moved into that house, named for the Conception of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, with “a great procession (Foundations 10:7)” on the feast of St. Blaise.
Another companion of St. Teresa to this somewhat difficult foundation was the young friar John of St. Matthias.
“Where have you hidden, Beloved …?” Spiritual Canticle, St. John of the Cross
Before going to Malagon, St. Teresa had met Fr. John of the Cross and convinced him to help her with the reform. Father Anthony of Jesus was also very enthusiastic. So Saint Teresa began at once to search for the place to begin.
A gentleman of Avila named Don Rafael Mejia Velasquez offered her a house in the tiny farming community of Duruelo, just northeast of Medina del Campo. St. Teresa had to go that way for her foundation in Valladolid, so she went to Duruelo with one companion, Antonia of the Holy Spirit, and Fr. Julian. The community was so tiny it was almost invisible (only about twenty people at the time); the house was used by an administrator to collect grain revenues. It was quite small, comprised of only an entrance, a larger room, a tiny kitchen and a loft. The travelers got hopelessly lost, arriving hot and tired just before nightfall. The house was dirty and full of vermin. Sr. Antonia felt discouraged: “Surely, Mother, there isn’t a soul, however good, who could put up with this. Don’t even consider it (Foundations 13:3).”
But when God wants something, He gives His servants the eyes to see as He does. Saint Teresa saw that the entrance could serve for a chapel, the larger room for sleeping, the loft for a choir. She brought Fr. John with her to Valladolid from Medina, where she taught him the charism as it had been established in the first three foundations. It is worthwhile to note that St. Teresa mentions that this instruction took place during the days before they had established enclosure: Saint Teresa’s strict enclosure did not allow priests or any visitor inside the monastery (Constitutions 15, 16).
What exactly did these two founders and future canonized saints speak of? St. Teresa says, “I taught him about the lifestyle of the Sisters (Foundations 13:5). For St. Teresa this meant “mortification or the style of both our community life and the recreation we have together. The recreation is taken with such moderation that it only serves to reveal the Sisters’ faults and to provide a little relief so that the Rule may be kept in its strictness (Foundations 13:5).” Most likely, these two ardent lovers of God spoke also of prayer, as the famous incident of John and Teresa going into ecstasy in the speakroom is often depicted in paintings (attested to by those who knew them).
“Let us keep before us our true founders, those holy fathers from whom we descend, for we know that by means of that path of poverty and humility they now enjoy God (Foundations 14:4).”
The two friars prayed for and chosen by St. Teresa were undaunted by the condition of the farmhouse in Duruelo. Fr. John went there first to prepare it, but there was not much he could do because they were very poor. Fr. Anthony collected many clocks to keep the Hours, although he may not have even had a bed. A young deacon also came. Fr. Anthony told St. Teresa that upon approaching the new monastery, he was filled with joy, and felt that he had at last left the world behind. He had renounced his priorship at the monastery in Medina. Despite his youthfulness and fragility (St. Teresa had serious doubts about his suitability for the foundation), this man persevered in the Order until his death and even assisted at the deaths of both John and Teresa.
“What little these buildings and exterior comforts do interiorly! Out of love for Him, I ask you, my Sisters and Fathers, that you never fail to be very moderate in this matter of large and magnificent houses (Foundations 14:4).” On the first Sunday of Advent, 1568, the first Mass was offered. Several months later, on her way to Toledo, St. Teresa visited the friars in Duruelo and was moved to devotion at the sight of the poverty and joy in which they were living. She writes that paper skulls and crosses made of sticks were everywhere. In the loft, where the Hours were recited, were two small hermitages, each with a window facing the altar, a stone for a pillow, and much hay for warmth, for it was very cold. She learned that they remained in prayer from Matins in the early morning until after Prime each day, and did not even notice the snow that blew in upon them. The friars did not lack for food, because they went out each day to the neighboring villages to preach. At that time they still did not wear sandals. These barefoot monks were welcomed everywhere they went. Surely it was the warmth of the love of God that warmed them. There were also a young brother and a calced Father joining them for prayer. Before leaving, St. Teresa begged the friars to soften their penitential practices, but they did not seem to pay much heed to her, and she “went away greatly consoled (Foundations 14:12).”
It wasn’t long before a gentleman invited the friars to the town of Mancera where he had built a church to honor a beautiful painting of Mary. Fr. Anthony went to see it, and eventually transferred the foundation to that town in 1570, where it remained until 1600.
“I understood that this foundation was a much greater grace than the favor He granted me to found houses of nuns (Foundations 14:12).”