[Mrs. Don-o]

“So far, they’ve only offered two models to women — The Virgin Mother, which, in my opinion, is an aberration and quite harmful to women, and the redeemed whore symbolised by Mary Magdalene... The Church hasn’t been able to find a better explanation for women ..."

If I were as ignorant as the person responsible for the above quote, I hope to God I'd never open my mouth in public.

The Catholic Church has canonized over 1,500 women as examples of heroic holiness and raised them "to the honor of the altar." Four of them (Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Siena, Terese of Lisieux, and Edith Stein of Auschwitz) have been proclaimed Doctors of the Church, who teach the Church --and the human race--- what it means to be holy!

Catholics admire St. Elizabeth Seton, teacher; Zelie Martin (St. Therese of Lisieux’s mom),lacemaker; Elizabeth Anscombe, Cambridge University professor; Maisie Ward, publisher/writer/lecturer; Dorothy Day, mother and journalist and servant of the poor; Gianna Beretta Molla, mother, physician, and martyr.

The Catholic Church urges us to recognize many outstanding women and to imitate their virtues: women writers, nuns, physicians, servants, mystics, philosophers, University presidents, foundresses of hospitals and schools, missionaries, poets, servants and queens.

This list could extend from here to heaven—and does.

[Mrs. Don-o]

ping

[linda_22003]

I read the headline too fast, and read it as "Mother" rather than "Saint" Theresa..... how do I get that picture out of my head?!?!?!?

[Larry Lucido]

While I don't trust moviemakers generally, I would aver that sainthood and sex aren't mutually exclusive.

[NYer]

"sassy" St. Teresa of Avila

Saint Teresa was born in Avila, Spain, March 28, 1515. She died in Alba, October 4, 1582. Her family origins have been traced to Toledo and Olmedo. Her father, Alonso de Cepeda, was a son of a Toledan merchant, Juan Sanchez de Toledo and Ines de Cepeda, originally from Tordesillas. Juan transferred his business to Avila, where he succeeded in having his children marry into families of the nobility. In 1505 Alonso married Catalina del Peso, who bore him two children and died in 1507. Two years later Alonso married the 15-year-old Beatriz de Ahumada of whom Teresa was born.

FULL TEXT

[Yo-Yo]

Somebody's looking pretty

SASSY!

[wideawake]

There is not even a hint of a shred of a notion of a crumb of a scrap of a stitch of a snippet of a sliver of evidence that Saint Teresa was not a virgin.

Anyone who has read her very frank and colloquially-written autobiography would know that.

St. Teresa was a brilliant, funny, no-nonsense lady who loved Jesus more than life itself.

And it is so amusing that people continue recycling this "madonna/whore" image.

Something less than 1% of Catholic women have been either consecrated virgins or reformed prostitutes.

99% have been wives and mothers.

The primary image of women among Catholic men is that of mother - either his mother or the mother of his children.

The secularist trash who are making this m,ovie despise motherhood, and it's telling that they don't mention what St. teresa of Avila was called before she was a saint: Mother Teresa.

[Rutles4Ever]

“So far, [the Catholic Church has]only offered two models to women — The Virgin Mother, which, in my opinion, is an aberration and quite harmful to women

[frogjerk]

God,

You raised up St. Teresa by Your Spirit so that she could manifest to the Church the way to perfection. Nourish us with the food of heaven, and fire us with a desire for holiness.

Amen.

[COBOL2Java]

Here's this gentleman's prior work:

Color me singularly unimpressed by his stewardship of a movie on St. Teresa of Avila...

[Claud]

“So far, [the Catholic Church has]only offered two models to women — The Virgin Mother, which, in my opinion, is an aberration and quite harmful to women

One need read no further.

Loriga, I don't have words for your monumental stupidity...so I pray instead that when you leave this world, your insides don't turn to charcoal when you catch a furtive glimpse of the Holy Virgin of Virgins in all her God-given beauty.

[Juana la Loca]

I agree. The Church has given us many holy women to emulate. Loriga is clearly a moron.

One small correction to your post, Edith Stein is not a Doctor of the Church, though many believe she eventually will be.

[wagglebee]

“So far, they’ve only offered two models to women — The Virgin Mother, which, in my opinion, is an aberration and quite harmful to women, and the redeemed whore symbolised by Mary Magdalene... The Church hasn’t been able to find a better explanation for women ..."

This is almost too pathetic to even comment on.

Scripture portrays Mary Magdalene as a devout follower of our Lord. Nowhere does it indicate that she was a whore and there is certainly nothing that would lead to the conclusion that she was the wife of Jesus which seems to be the newest blasphemy.

The feminazi left seeks to destroy the Church. All of their attempts thus far have been soundly rejected, so now they are simply fabricating nonsense to further their agenda.

I do not know nearly as much as I should about St. Teresa, but it sounds to me as if they are trying to impose modern perceptions on an historical figure. She was a very charismatic and fascinating woman in her time, so they try to extrapolate from this that it must have been a result of her sexuality. What the left cannot seem to comprehend is that when a person experiences a true relationship with God, it changes them and others will see this in their outward appearance. St. Teresa's relationship with our Lord was beyond anything most of us can ever imagine and to try to diminish this by perverting her life on film is an insult to all Christians.

[Biggirl]

Also do not forget the women who got the devotion to the Divine Mercy started, St. Maria Faustina. She is a great female saint.

[Biggirl]

Also for American saints, there is a saint that was a member of a rich Philadepha family, St. Katherine Drexel. She had used her inherited money to start up an order to educate African and Native Americans.

[Nihil Obstat]

Blessed be God in His angels and in His saints. Saint Teresa pray for us. Sacred Heart of Jesus have mercy on us. Ray Loriga and Geraldine Chaplin, go soak your heads.

[mrs. a]

“So far, they’ve only offered two models to women — The Virgin Mother, which, in my opinion, is an aberration and quite harmful to women, and the redeemed whore symbolised by Mary Magdalene... The Church hasn’t been able to find a better explanation for women ..."

I was always taught that the Virgin Mary was a model of prayerful acceptance to women AND MEN. None of the boys or girls in my religion classes had any problem with that!

[LadyDoc]

Actually, if you read her autobiography, St. Teresa liked men (i.e. a virgin, but not a prissy man hating virgin or a clueless asexual virgin nor a man hating lesbian).

She was probably what we call a "tom boy"...tried to run away to be a martyr with her brother as a kid...and when she was a teenager, got in trouble with her strict father over an incident which probably was just meeting a boyfriend outside of her home, which in those days was a no no.

So her father shipped her off to a convent school, where she became religious...but not too religious.

She decided to be a nun because she was worried she'd succumb to temptations to sin and go to hell...but she didn't chose the strict Augustinian nuns who taught her, but the liberal Carmelites...

Her reason was that they weren't strict, but there might have been another reason: The Augustinians required "blood lines" and her grandfather was Jewish...

While in the Carmelite training period (novitiate) she had an episode of illness where people thought she was dead. In today's psychiatry, she was catatonic from a dissociation reaction, something usually associated with sexual tension. She recovered and became a nun who enjoyed visiting outside the convent and with visitors, both men and women, in the convent parlour.

Even her "visions" might have been imagination or perhaps real visions with a lot of egotism... in those days when lots of people had "visions"

By today's standards, all this was innocent: One doubts she did more than flirt.

But at age 30 she was "born again" and the visions probably became a genuine voice of God...

She went on to become a reformer of the Carmelite orders, and continued to have friendships with men...but she no longer had visits in the parlor nor visited relatives. She spent most of her time in prayer, and used her friendships with others to promote love of God and reform of the very lax religious life in Convents and monasteries (you think Pedophilia is new? Read Catholic reformers about the bad monasteries back then)...
And she reminded an increasingly rigid intolerant Spanish church that God is love..

.and was investigated by the inquisition for such a radical thought. Her writing of her life was an "answer" to the Inquisition...luckily, they didn't find her "tainted" Jewish heritage, or she probably would have been killed as a heretic...

Will her "sexiness" ruin the film? depends how they present it. Sounds like the filmmakers are clueless, so I worry about the film...

[ladyinred]

The quote you highlighted in your post is so offensive that I am nearly speechless. These reprobates have many loose women to do movies about in their own neighborhood, why insult the beliefs of others to indulge in their raunchy lifestyles and fantasies? (okay, I did say nearly speechless!) :-)

[Aquinasfan]

Every year EWTN airs a Granada-TV, Spanish language mini-series from the early '80s about the life of Theresa of Avila. It's absolutely wonderful. It's the best treatment of religious life that I've ever seen on film. I consider it to be as good a mini-series as "Brideshead Revisited." These are the two mini-series that I would take to a desert island.