Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV SAN MIGUEL, the hereditary domain of Dona Elvira de Medina, was situated to the northerly side of Avila, at the foot of the hill crowned by that city, in a wooded valley, which like all the rest of that neighbourhood has a beauty and picturesqueness of its own. Dona Elvira, we are told by Lezana in the Carmelite Annals, made over her patrimony to the Blessed Virgin, and built the Carmelite monastery of the Incarnation upon it. The first Mass in the monastery chapel, as we have already mentioned, was celebrated on the very day of Teresa's birth. Again, it was close to this holy spot that our little seven-year-old heroine was arrested in her flight, and whence she had sorrowfully to retrace her steps, and follow the uncle who brought her back to her mother's arms. A double coincidence which the future was to render even more striking, for it was here that Teresa was to endure her martyrdom of love united to Jesus hidden beneath the sacramental veil. The monastery was a large one, as Dona Elvira de Medina's generosity enabled the Carmelites to add more than once to the size of their buildings, so that they had room for a great number of nuns. Lezana relates that in the year 1550 they counted 190 in the community, but in 1533, the period to which we refer, they were probably far short of this number. A friend of Teresa's had taken the veil at the monastery but a few years before. Juana Suarez was a true sister ofCONVENT OF THE INCARNATION 41 Maria Briceno, in the sense that she was a model religious, remarkable for her fidelity to her Rule. Teresa was so deeply attached to her that she almost feared for a moment that her choice of the monastery of the Incarnation in preference for the Augustinian convent was influenced by her affection for her. Accordingly, she tel...