Saint Who?
Saints Who Achieved Sanctity Young
Saint Teresa Margaret Redi
Religious († 1770) Feast: September 1
She was given the name Anna Maria by her noble parents, and when she was ten years old, she was sent to be educated by Benedictine nuns. She impressed her teachers with her obedience, prayerfulness, and diligence. She completed her education at the age of seventeen and returned home. Shortly afterwards, she met a girl who was about to enter the Discalced Carmelite order. Moved interiorly, she believed that Saint Teresa of Ávila herself was encouraging her to follow that girl’s example. Taking the name Teresa, she entered a Discalced Carmelite convent in Florence.
Teresa only lived five years as a Carmelite. Outwardly, her life in the cloister seemed ordinary and hidden. But the other nuns in her community were struck by Teresa’s quiet but heroic holiness. They noticed her devotion to the Sacred Heart, her constant willingness to make sacrifices for others, her rigorous personal penances, and the cheerful way she cared for the sick, even when she herself was very ill.
After Teresa died at the age of twenty-three, her body lay exposed in the chapel for fifteen days but showed no signs of decomposition. As her body remained incorrupt and miracles began to occur through her intercession, devotion to the patient, good-natured nun led to her canonization.
Sacred Heart of Jesus,
teach us how to quietly make sacrifices for others.
