In her early years as a nun, [Teresa] was, by her account, assiduous in prayer while sick but lax and lukewarm in her prayers and devotions when the sickness had passed. However, her prayer life eventually deepened, she began to have visions and a vivid sense of the presence of God, and was converted to a life of extreme devotion. In 1560 she resolved to reform the monastery that had, she thought, departed from the order’s original intention and become insufficiently austere.

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