SANTA TERESA DE LOS ANDES

SAINT TERESA OF JESUS OF LOS ANDES (Juanita Fernández Solar) is the first Chilean woman and the first American Discalced Carmelite Nun to be raised to the honours of the altar. She was born in Santiago de Chile into the heart of a very Catholic, well-off family, on 13th july 1900. Her parents were Miguel Fernández and Lucía Solar.

From the age of 6 years, she assited at holy Mass almost daily with her mother, and longed for the day when she would receive her first Holy Communion, which came about on 11st September 1910. From then on she managed to communicate daily spending quite some time in friendly conversation with Jesus.

From her childhood she also had an intense Marian devotion which was one of the key pins holding together her spirituality. Knowledge and love of the Mother of God sustained and gave life to every moment of her journey following Christ.

She did her studies at Sacred Heart College (1907 - 1918). Full of affection, she believed herself incapable of living away from her own. Without doubt she accepted the discipline of becoming a boarder for the last three years of her schooling, in order to train herself for the final parting, which was to take place on 7 May 1919, when she entered the Discalced Carmelite Nuns in Los Andes.

From the age of 14 she had felt called to Carmel. She prepared herself by reading the Carmelite Saints and frequent correspondence with the Prioress of Los Andes, who was amazed at the clarity with which the 17 year old Teresa could explain the Carmelite ideal and the fire with which she defended her contemplative life, which the world "rejected as worthless." She embraced her contemplative life with the hope and expectation that a true love of the world gives: for herself to become more useful as a witness to the spiritual dimension of mankind, and through her sacrifice to call the blood of Christ down upon humanity to purify it.

As a Carmelite she was called Teresa of Jesus, and did not manage to live evan one year in the convent, dying on 12 April 1920. The religious of her convent declared that she was already a saint when she entered. For this reason she was able to complete her climb to sanctity in such a short time, having begun in earnest a long time before her first Communion.
"Christ so foolish in his love, has driven me madly in love", she used to say. Her passionate desire and constant endeavour was to resemble him, to mould herself to Christ's image.

She was always ready to serve others and give up things for them so that there would be gaiety and happiness, and to make virtue lovable and attractive.

Her life was entirely normal and balanced. She attained an unenviable maturity, integrating with admirable harmony the human and the divine: prayer, study, the small things about the house... her beloved sport in which she distinguished herserlf in swimming and horse riding.

Being a lovely, vey beautiful young girl, interested in sport, happy, well balanced, obliging and responsible, Teresa of Los Andes is an unbeatable model to attract youth in search of Christ, and as a reminder to all, that in fulfilling the Gospel calle to love, we realize ourselves as persons.

Through her intercession, the Lord is releasing a copious flood of graces and favours of all kinds drawing uncountable prodigal children to himself. Her sanctuary, visited by more than one hundred thousand pilgrims each month, has been converted into the spiritual centre of Chile. In this way Teresa of Los Andes is fulfilling her mission that was already recognized a short time after her death: to create a hunger and a thirst for God in our materialized world.

She was beatified in Santiago de Chile on 3 April 1987 by Pope John Paul II, who solemnly canonized her in Rome on 21 March 1993.