_Santa Teresa_, was born at Avila in Castile, March 28, 1515. During her earliest youth, through reading the lives of the saints and martyrs, she formed a desire to take up religious work. In accordance with this desire, at the age of twenty years, she entered the convent of Carmelites, and chose as her life work the reforming of the order of Mount Carmel, as well as the establishment of a number of convents for men. It was she who made the Carmelites go barefoot, or sandalled. Santa Teresa had distinct literary gifts, and her history of her life is a work of absorbing interest, which is still read with genuine pleasure by students of the literature of Spain. She attained a position of such authority in that country that Philip III chose her for its second patron saint, ranking her next to Santiago (St. James).
_Santa Ynez._ See Santa Inez. See pages 109 and 341.
_Santa Ysabel_, also spelled _Isabel_ (St. Isabella of France), who founded the convent at Longchamps, was sister to the saintly King Louis. She was educated with her brother by their mother, Blanche of Castile. St. Isabel dedicated her convent to the “humility of the Blessed Virgin,” and gave to it all her dowry. As long as the convent existed the festival of this saint was celebrated with great splendor. (_Stories of the Saints._)
_Santiago de Santa Ana_ (St. James of St. Anne). Land grant.
_San Timotéo_ (St. Timothy). St. Timothy was the beloved disciple of St. Paul, whom he accompanied on many journeys. It is said that he was Bishop of Ephesus, until at the age of eighty years he suffered the cruel fate of being beaten to death by pagans.
_San Tomaso_ (St. Thomas), was a Galilean fisherman and one of the apostles. “So great was his incredulity that he has always been remembered for that rather than for his other characteristics,” and it was in this way that the familiar expression “a doubting Thomas” arose. At the time of the ascension of the Virgin, Thomas refused to believe in the event, and the legend relates that in order to convince him the Virgin dropped her girdle to him from the heavens. Three other saints also bear this name, St. Thomas á Becket, the celebrated English historical character; St. Thomas Aquinas, a grandnephew of Frederick I and a man of great learning; and St. Thomas the Almoner, who was so charitable that “as a child he would take off his own clothes to give away to children in the street.” It is related of the last named that he wore the same hat for twenty-six years, and that his whole life was “but a grand series of beneficent deeds. When the hour of his death came he had given away everything except the pallet on which he lay, and this was to be given to a jailer who had assisted him in executing his benevolent designs.” There is a remarkably beautiful picture of him by Murillo, representing him as a child, dividing his clothing among four ragged little ones.