Sister Marie Gemma OCD, prioress of the Carmelite monastery of Baroda in Gujarat, told AsiaNews her story. In 2003, she made a pilgrimage to the places of Saint Teresa of Jesus in Ávila,. Here she “prayed for a love that springs from the conviction of first being loved by Him – Jesus – who was her Spouse, Friend, [and] Lord.” Here she “longed for it all – to love to the end, to discover more and more this Jesus who awaits me and enters the core of my being, encourages me to leap into the mystery of God and at the same time to embrace the whole world with a large heart.”

Mumbai (AsiaNews) – Today the Catholic Church celebrates the liturgical memorial of Saint Teresa of Ávila, reformer of the monastic order of the Discalced Carmelites. On the day of the saint’s death, Sister Marie Gemma OCD – prioress of the monastery Prem Jyot (Light of Love), diocese of Baroda (Gujarat State) – shared with AsiaNews her memory of the pilgrimage to the saint’s Basilica, in Alba de Tormes, Spain. Here she saw the saint’s reliquary, prayed at her grave, and “broke down, silent tears streaming down my face”.

It all began “in Avila, in May 2003. We, the little group of ten nuns representing Carmels all over the world, had accomplished our mission at the General Chapter of our Discalced Carmelite Friars. To crown the ‘gift’ of our unprecedented presence at that Chapter, we were taken on a pilgrimage to places sanctified by Teresa, Our Holy Mother. Was it for real? This surpassed my wildest dreams – visiting her home, the Incarnation, her first foundation*”.

For the nun, it was “an emotionally charged spiritual experience . . . until we reached the place of her rest – Alba de Tormes. With my companions I knelt and prayed at her tomb aware of her presence, of her incorrupt mortal remains and then before the reliquary containing her heart. The reliquary was encased in glass behind a grille.

“And then it happened! Without warning, all of a sudden, Mother Prioress went up to the reliquary and bringing it out placed it by my side! It was more than I could take. I broke down, silent tears streaming down my face. Nothing yet had brought me closer to Our Holy Mother than this very close encounter with her heart. I prayed intensely for a heart like her own – large and wide as the sands of the shore, a heart that beat for Jesus alone with a passion that consumed her.

"I prayed for a love that springs from the conviction of first being loved by Him – Jesus – who was her Spouse, Friend, [and] Lord, ‘His Majesty’ who ‘held her by the right hand,’ who never took his eyes off her.”

“I longed for it all,” Sister Marie Gemma said, “to love to the end, to discover more and more this Jesus who awaits me and enters the core of my being, encourages me to leap into the mystery of God and at the same time to embrace the whole world with a large heart. This wholly unexpected and gratuitous grace left me humbled and grateful, my heart inundated with a joy and peace whose perfume lasts to this day.

She ended her story by calling on "Holy Mother Teresa, look down and visit this vine which you have planted. Grant [us] that all our Carmels be the height where souls in love with God are drawn in intimacy and in union with Him." (NC)

* Saint Teresa of Jesus was the driving force behind the Convent of Saint Joseph (Sp. Convento de San José) in Avila, Spain.

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