Sabrina Y.
- Oct 7
- 1 min read

Saints and Sisters: Santa Teresa de Ávila and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

As you all know, I'm kind of obsessed with mystics. Whether in 17th Century Philippines or Medieval England, I love a story of a mystic. This particular story (or sistory, I should say) starts in 16th century Spain and ends in 17th century New Spain. Santa Teresa was a 16th century mystic, nun, and reformer who founded the order of the Discalced Carmelite nuns. Decades after her death, Sor Juana joined that same order, only to leave and join a different convent a few months later. That isn't the only thing that makes them "sisters" though—Juana was inspired by Santa Teresa, and even cited her when defending herself against critics of female writers. You can learn all about them in our podcast if you haven't listened yet. When you do, come back here to check out these sources and learn even more about these incredible women:

Sor Juana:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sor-Juana-Ines-de-la-Cruz

https://qspirit.net/sor-juana-de-la-cruz-nun-mexico/

http://www.machatheatre.org/reel/reel_nun_and_the_countess.php

https://www.netflix.com/title/80123792

https://amazingwomeninhistory.com/sor-juana-ines-de-la-cruz-self-taught-scholar-poet-spain/

http://server.fhp.uoregon.edu/dtu/sites/sorjuana/erotic.shtml

https://poets.org/poet/sor-juana-ines-de-la-cruz

https://juanainesdelacruz.wordpress.com/by-her-own-hands/

http://www.latin-american.cam.ac.uk/culture/SorJuana/

http://www.revistascisan.unam.mx/Voices/pdfs/3108.pdf

https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1256&context=clcweb