cried aloud, that “heaven and earth, and all things that are in them, call upon me without ceasing to love my Lord God.”
It was the hope of tasting the deep spiritual joys of Jerome and Augustine which finally led Theresa to leave her own home, to disregard her father’s sacred wishes, to give up the tenderest of earthly ties, and to fly like a criminal to bury herself body and soul within the enclosure of the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation; for Don Alfonso refused to give his consent to her leaving the world. She says: “The utmost I could get from him was that I might do as I pleased after his death.” But obedience to parents has always in the Roman Church been subordinated to obedience to priests and confessors; and Theresa undoubtedly had the approval of her religious adviser in taking this step. Not satisfied with going away alone from her father’s house, and with utterly disregarding that father’s feelings, the young girl now turned her attention to persuading her brother Antonio to join her in her flight and become a friar. This she soon
