Today, July 13, is the memorial of Saint Teresa of the Andes.
Carmelite religious.
The future saint was born Juana Enriqueta Josefina de los Sagrados Corazones Fernández y Solar in Santiago, Chile into an upper class family in 1900.
Early in her life she read “The Story Of A Soul,” the classic autobiography of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus. At that time, St. Thérèse was not yet canonized. St. Thérèse’s book made Juana realize that she wanted to live for God alone.
In 1919, at the age of 19, Juana became a novice of the Discalced Carmelite nuns in Los Andes. She received the religious name Teresa of Jesus. As her apostolate, Teresa wrote letters that talked about the spiritual life.
Teresa’s picture where she was dressed as a professed Carmelite was taken before she entered Carmel. Although cameras were not allowed inside the Chilean Carmel, Teresa was permitted to borrow a habit and dress in it for the photograph.
In a few months since her entrance to Carmel, Teresa contracted the deadly disease typhus. She was still three months short of her 20th birthday, and had yet six months to complete her canonical novitiate, so as to be normally able to make her religious vows; nevertheless she was allowed to profess vows in periculo mortis (danger of death).
Teresa died at age 19 in 1920. Pope St. John Paul II beatified (1987) and canonized (1993) Teresa.