Avila, Theresa of

St. Teresa of vila (1515 - 1582), a major figure of the Roman Catholic Reformation, was a prominent writer and a monastic reformer. She joined the Carmelite order of nuns as a young woman and spent long hours in a form of meditation that she called the ""prayer of quiet"" and the deeper ""prayer of union."" She wrote several books that have become spiritual classics. Her best-known work is Interior Castle. She is one of the thirty-three Doctors of the Roman Catholic Church, and one of only three female Doctors, along with St. Catherine of Siena and St. Thrse of Lisieux.;