God reward you, my daughters, for having shown me so much charity. And who other than you should have done this and helped me in a time of so much need? I tell you that God will never fail you, and may he bless you for me.
Saint Teresa of Avila
Letter 452 to the Discalced Carmelite nuns in Toledo
June (?) 1582
Teresian scholar and English translator of the collected works, Father Kieran Kavanaugh indicates that “this fragment is contained in a letter by Blessed Mary of Jesus [López de Rivas] to Teresa’s niece, Beatriz de Jesús [Cepeda y Ocampo] in Madrid.”
Blessed Mary of Jesus writes: “And the last letter that she wrote to us from Burgos was one of gratitude. While she was very sick in that place, we sent her 200 ducats of silver to help her, and she wrote saying …” Teresa’s words, which are quoted in that letter, are cited in the quote of the day text seen above.
Saint Teresa thought extremely highly of Blessed Mary of Jesus. She died at Toledo on 13 September 1640.
Teresa of Avila, St. 1985, The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, translated from the Spanish by Kavanaugh, K; Rodriguez, O, ICS Publications, Washington DC.
Featured image: The death of St. Teresa of Avila is an oil on canvas painting by Giovanni Segala (Italian, 1663–1720) that was executed in 1696 for the Church of San Pietro in Oliveto in Brescia, Italy. The painting was one of six lunettes on Teresian themes that were restored for the fifth centenary of the birth of St. Teresa in 2015.
Carmelite Quotes 
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