• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
Luminary Quotes

Luminary Quotes

  • Share
  • Subscribe
  • Topics
  • Themes
  • Favorite

Search Quotes >
Share this quote
Tweet
Share
Email
Tweet
Share
Email
previous

I was in prayer when I suddenly became conscious of a presence beside me. It was an angel sent by God…

Saint Teresa of Avila

next
  • Share
  • Subscribe
  • Topics
  • Themes
  • Favorite

Search Quotes >

An Angel Sent By God

Topic: Life Beyond Death & the Spirit World

I was in prayer when I suddenly became conscious of a presence beside me. It was an angel sent by God, who instructed me in His ways and filled my soul with a sense of divine love.

Saint Teresa of Avila

Teresa of Avila, born Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda Dávila y Ahumada on March 28, 1515, in either Ávila or Gotarrendura, Spain, was a Carmelite nun, mystic, and religious reformer. Raised in a devout Catholic household, she was drawn to the lives of the saints and developed an early sense of spiritual longing. After her mother died when she was fourteen, she deepened her devotion, eventually entering the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation at age twenty. There, amid periods of illness and inner conflict, she began to experience contemplative prayer and moments of religious ecstasy, shaped by her reading and desire for deeper union with God.

As Teresa’s interior life matured, she became concerned with the state of her religious community. She sought to renew the Carmelite Order by encouraging a return to simplicity, silence, and devotion. Together with Saint John of the Cross, she helped found the Discalced Carmelites, emphasizing a more focused, prayer-centered life. Though her reforms faced resistance, they gradually gained support and papal recognition. Despite poor health, Teresa traveled across Spain to establish new convents, grounding each one in her vision of contemplative discipline and spiritual integrity.

Teresa of Avila is also known for her writings, which explore the life of prayer and the soul’s movement toward God. In The Life of Teresa of Jesus, The Way of Perfection, and The Interior Castle, she shared her experiences with clarity and depth, offering practical guidance for those drawn to contemplative practice. Her language is direct, shaped by personal insight rather than theory. She died on October 4, 1582, in Alba de Tormes. Canonized in 1622 and named a Doctor of the Church in 1970, Teresa’s influence continues through her writings, her reform work, and the spiritual communities she helped form.

(1515-1582) Christianity

Teresa of Ávila. The Way of Perfection. Translated by E. Allison Peers, Image Books, 2004.

Saint Teresa of Avila


Theme: Angels

About This Teresa of Ávila Quotation [Commentary]

During prayer, Teresa of Ávila writes, “I suddenly became conscious of a presence beside me. It was an angel sent by God.” Her words are plain and exact, pointing to a moment that was neither imagined nor sought. The experience came in the stillness of prayer, and its clarity lay in the angel’s nearness and in its source—sent by God. Teresa does not elaborate on what the angel looked like or how it appeared. Her attention rests on what followed: “He instructed me in His ways and filled my soul with a sense of divine love.”

The sequence of Teresa’s experience is deliberate. The angel’s presence, its divine origin, its act of instruction, and the resulting sense of being filled with love—each unfolds with directness. “Instructed me in His ways” reveals not a verbal teaching but a shaping of the soul. Teresa’s emphasis is not on explanation but on transformation. She describes not just a vision but an encounter that left her soul filled, not with ideas, but with divine love.

This experience is not set apart from Teresa of Ávila’s broader understanding of prayer and divine relationship. Her words show that such help can arrive quietly, during ordinary prayer. The angel did not interrupt but deepened the moment. By saying “a presence beside me,” she invites the possibility that guidance and love may come through divine messengers—without spectacle, but with clarity and effect.

Additional St. Teresa of Ávila Quotations

“The splendor of the angels who appeared to me was so great that I could not fix my eyes upon them, for they dazzled me. They seemed to be all afire, and their brightness is unlike anything known here on earth.”

—Teresa of Ávila. The Life of Saint Teresa of Ávila by Herself. Translated by J.M. Cohen, Penguin Books, 1957.

“I saw an angel close by me, on my left side, in bodily form. He was not large but small, and very beautiful, his face so aflame that he appeared to be one of the highest ranks of angels who seemed to be all on fire.”
Teresa recounts her famous vision of the angel that pierced her heart with a golden arrow, a profound mystical experience known as the “transverberation of the heart.”

—Teresa of Ávila. The Life of Saint Teresa of Ávila by Herself. Translated by. The Life of Saint Teresa of Ávila by Herself. Translated by E. Allison Peers, Dover Publications, 2008.

“The Lord, in His great goodness, sometimes sends His angels to bring comfort to those who suffer for His sake, as He did for the saints of old.”

—Teresa of Ávila. Interior Castle. Translated by E. Allison Peers, Image Books, 1961.

Resources

  • Published Oct 12, 2023 By Dr. Jennifer Hornyak Wojciechowski, Teresa of Ávila: an Approachable Saint?

Related Quotes

  • Society of the Angels - Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias
  • Work of the Angels - Meister Eckhart,
  • A Handbook of Angels - Hans C. Moolenburgh,
  • Angels Are Preparing - Nora M. Spurgin,
  • Our Guardian Angel - Lorna Byrne,
  • The Angels In Heaven - Emanuel Swedenborg, Divine Wisdom
  • An Angel Sent By God - Saint Teresa of Avila,
  • Your Guardian Angel - Peter Kreeft,
  • The Attention of Angels - Billy Graham, Angels: God's Secret Agents

Copyright © 2017 – 2025 LuminaryQuotes.com About Us