Teresa de Cartagena
v. 1425-après 1481 15th century
The prayer of one who hears nothing from outside any more, and finds that silence is not a wall.
Who was Teresa de Cartagena?
Granddaughter of a chief rabbi of Burgos who became a bishop after his conversion, she entered the cloister young and lost her hearing, for good. She then wrote in Castilian one of the earliest known books by a woman in that language: a consolation addressed to the sick. When she was accused of not having written such a book herself, she answered with a second one, firmer.
In their own words
The mist of temporal and human sadness covered the bounds of my living […] it carried me away to an island called "The reproach of men and the outcast of the people".
My affliction is of such a kind, and so stubborn, that it lets me hear good counsel no more than bad.
When I am alone, I am kept company by myself […] when I find myself in the company of others, I am wholly forsaken.