Teresa of Ávila
1515 — 1582
Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda Dávila y Ahumada (1515–1582) entered the Carmelite Monastery of the Incarnation in Ávila at twenty and spent nearly two decades in spiritual struggle before a decisive conversion around 1554. She then reformed the Carmelite Order, traveled across Spain founding seventeen convents she called 'dovecotes,' and wrote the defining Catholic mystical texts of her century. In 1970 Pope Paul VI named her the first female Doctor of the Church.