According to the Department of Defense, 41,829 U.S. soldiers had been seriously wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan as of December 20, 2010. But while the media routinely report war fatalities, the huge numbers of wounded usually go unmentioned.

Certain modern readers have tended to reconstruct Teresa according to today’s cultural norms—a recent Publisher’s Weekly headline labeled her “a mystic for our times.” But to understand Teresa’s achievements and appeal, it is important to acknowledge that she was, first of all, a woman of her own times.

  A mother reflects on her son’s years as a Marine in Iraq.