She advanced rapidly and taught others to do the same, being encouraged by a vision of the place reserved for her in hell if she was unfaithful to God's graces. However, an intense prayer experience in her forties helped her to renounce worldly attachments and enter deeper into a life of prayer. For two decades she led what she describes as a mediocre prayer life, hindered by too much socialization with visitors. Determined to avoid marriage, and motivated more by the need for security than love for God, at the age of twenty Teresa entered religious life as a Carmelite nun. When she began to exhibit worldly vanities, her father placed her in a convent to be educated with other ladies of her social class.
At the age of 14 Teresa was plunged into sorrow upon the death of her mother to find consolation she asked the Virgin Mary to be her new mother. After an uncle found them and returned them home, they built hermitages for themselves in the family garden. Fascinated with the lives of the saints taught to her by her pious parents, as children she and a brother tried to run away from home to seek martyrdom among the Moors.
Teresa of Jesus, was born in Spain to a large, devout, and prominent Catholic family. Teresa of Avila (1515–1582), also known as St.
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