To celebrate the feast of Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church, lines from Richard Wilbur's "Teresa:"

                         The proof came soon and plain:
                   Visions were true which quickened her to run
                   God's barefoot errands in the rocks of Spain
                         Beneath its beating sun,
                   And lock the O of ecstasy within
                   The tempered consonants of discipline.

Robert P. Imbelli, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, is a longtime Commonweal contributor.

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