St. Teresa's Little Scholar

P. Evaristo de la Virgen de Carmen, OCD, El Letradillo de Santa Teresa (Toledo, 1926), translated by Ben Douglass

Among the many jewels which God heaped up in Spain in the 16th century we may count, and as one of the most excellent, the Venerable [since 1976, Blessed, B.D.] María de Jesús. The 18th of August, 1560 she was born for the world, and the 25th of the same month she was born again to the life of grace by means of the waters of Baptism, administered in the parish of St. Bartholomew of Tartanedo, in the province of Guadalajara and the diocese of Sigüenza, as is clear from the baptismal entry, which one finds in the books of said parish, which mentions her by name, according to the petition of her godfather, and as a presage of her destiny in the Marian Order, that of the most high Mother of God.

This fact obliges one to spend a while rectifying what was commonly believed until now concerning the fatherland of the Venerable. And we say a while, because although it does not appear that one can deny that she was born in Tartanedo, we do not believe that the ancients could have been completely mislead in designating, with great unanimity, Molina de Aragón as the place where she came into the world. If the baptismal entry does not leave room for doubt concerning the first, this unanimity, corroborated with the constant tradition of the convent of Toledo and the testimony of the Venerable herself, makes one see that she had Molina as her fatherland; and therefore, her birth in that other place is due to the temporary sojourn of her parents in it, a sojourn which we believe was intentional. The parochial books of Tartanedo give us some hint of this, since in them are found the entries of the descendents of the house of Rivas, up to that which belongs to our Venerable. It is very possible, and the case would not be unique, that the family chose this little village for the place of birth of their children, as more relaxed and calm, which it would always be moreso than Molina, and for another thing neighboring this last place, from which only some two leagues or a little more separate it. Thus are harmonized the written testimony and the traditional, and it causes no wonderment to find her paternal grandfather, necessarily, in Molina, as in the place of his habitual residence, when the child leaves to live with him at four years after having lost her father.

Don Antonio López de Rivas and doña Elvira Martínez, who were her parents, both of illustrious ancestry and related to very noble houses, realized, something that not all parents are able to say, that woman, whether of high lineage or humble origin, has been put in the world by God for something more than to be a figurine for fashions or entertainment for vagrants and profligates. Therefore they exerted themselves in adding, according to the common usage of the time, to the nobility of the blood the nobility of the soul, which, as St. Ambrose says, is rooted in virtue.

The method for achieving these aspirations was extremely simple: to educate her as a Christian, a method almost absolutely unknown in the theories of modern educators and in the practices of very many parents, who have not duly realized that the fruits of youth are nothing other than the development of the seeds of childhood, and who see with displeasure (and worse if they do not see it), a youth that is frivolous, cynical, disrespectful, to the point of giving nauseas, with those most worthy of veneration, still without catching on that the youth of tomorrow will be nothing other than a new, worsened edition of that of today, as a consequence of the criminal indulgences, of the laxity, of the horrible parricidal spirit with which they nourish childhood.

The action of the father could only reach to the fourth year of age of the child, or slightly more, the time at which she lost him; but moments before expiring, he called her to his side, as did the Holy Patriarch Jacob with his twelve children, and giving her his blessing with his eyes brimming with tears, told her, promising her a much richer inheritance than the holy Patriarch: "Daughter, I die; God remains for your father," an expression very similar to that which Our Mother St. Teresa pronounced before the Most Holy Virgin when at twelve years of age she lost her mother (and similar not only in words, but also in fruits).

In view of this, the mother believed herself more obliged to sow in the heart of her daughter the seed whose interior growth was in such a special manner entrusted to God; and so she instructed her in all manner of virtues, not believing any foreign to her age; making her obey and deny her will even in difficult matters, which the child certainly executed already at that time with much pleasure and with submission, as she herself said afterwards. The mother understood that she was a tree which could give fruit from the moment of being planted, and she did not want to wait on the laws of development: which is what everyone would do, if they could do it with fruit trees.

And that all of this is true, and of how ready her soul was to yield the celestial interests which her mother deposited in her and God blessed, the buds with which she sprouted at an age when one can still neither demand nor hope for anything other that puerilities furnish, more than a clue, complete proof. Her piety and desires for fasting and mortification began, as the ancient testimonies say, almost in the arms of the wet nurse, entertaining herself, in the likeness of Our Mother St. Teresa, in making churches with the playthings they gave her, thus transporting the most innocent diversions by the rivers of piety, at an age at which it appears to us that everything is done for our entertainment, and justifying fully the judgment noted above, namely that from childhood she was holy.

Those who write her life are accustomed to make note here of her prompt devotion to the Most Holy Virgin; and although this devotion be inseparable from sanctity, in the Venerable it was like music and harmony and aroma and sweetness which swelled her soul all the instants of her life. Therefore it was a delight to her to call herself María and to hear that sweet name, and dolls left her puerile hands transformed into images of the Mother of God with the facility with which the stitches of an exquisite lace leave from the fingers of a skillful youth, as if something internal and consubstantial to her inclined her to these devout manifestations of her love.

In view of this, nothing amazes me about an event which happened to her when she scarcely counted five years, an event very analogous to that which befell him who would be her Father in religion, and a symbol and glimpse of the place towards which the Queen of the holy Mountain guided the gentle waters of this clean little stream. She was playing a certain day on the banks of the river Gallo, which passes through Molina de Aragón, and in a moment of carelessness or clumsiness she let slip from her hands the quince with which she was entertaining herself, and it fell in the river; and drawn on by the desire for her quince with more force than it was drawn by the river, she threw herself at it to catch it, without any fear at the danger to which she exposed herself. The danger was greater than as many as witnessed the event, since they believed that she had drowned herself without any possibility of help. Perhaps she saw in the waters of the river that which St. Peter saw in those of the sea of Tiberius: an absolute servant of higher powers, impotent to do harm to those who, like her, are completely consecrated to them. What is certain is that, without even letting her sink, the Queen of the Universe appears to her, takes her by the hand, and carries her in spite of the waters as on a carpet of grass, until leaving her on a hill some five kilometers distant from the city, where the servants who went looking for her found her.

This event will appear strange, as all miracles appear, to a great number of people; but, given the testimonies which authorize it, perhaps the best method of convincing them is to advise them to love and to hope in the most high Mother of God as this her servant loved and hoped in her, and it is possible that this will suffice to solve all difficulties.

Here was where the Most Holy Virgin traced for her in a sensible manner the program in whose development the Venerable was to spend her life: "I want you," Most holy Mary told her, "for my daughter"; accepting in this manner the desires and affections with which God had so soon filled her privileged soul.