During her senior year at Brescia College, Sister Cheryl Clemons took a class on mysticism, in which she wrote a paper about the 16th century Spanish mystic Saint Teresa of Avila.
Sister Cheryl Clemons
“I’ve always loved Teresa of Avila,” Sister Cheryl said. “She has always been an ideal of a relationship with God. I’ve always loved the Bernini statue ‘Ecstasy of Saint Teresa’ in Rome.”
It took much longer for Sister Cheryl to warm to Saint Therese of Lisieux, the 19th century French Carmelite who captured the world’s imagination with her “Little Way” to holiness.
“When I read her ‘Story of a Soul’ I thought it was too saccharine,” Sister Cheryl said. “But I learned later that was due to the editing by her sister, who was making her case for canonization. I did a retreat about Saint Therese and her family. Her parents – Louis and Marie Zelie Guerin Martin – are the only married couple to be canonized who weren’t martyrs.”
Sister Cheryl knows less about Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross – perhaps better known as Edith Stein, who converted from Judaism and was murdered in a German concentration camp rather than turn her back on her faith.
“More of her writings are philosophical rather than spiritual. She wrote about suffering and hardship. But a great way to learn is to teach it,” Sister Cheryl said.
All three of these saints were cloistered members of the Carmelite order. Saint Teresa of Calcutta – “Mother Teresa” – took to the streets to preserve the dignity of the poor in India.
“The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa,” Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome, Italy.
“Mother Teresa was actively engaged in spirituality. We can’t imitate her service, but she is a good model for active ministry,” Sister Cheryl said.
Aside from their similar names, they all wrote about the importance of prayer, and they all dealt with distractions, Sister Cheryl said.
“Distractions are why most people stop praying,” she said.
On March 28, 2026, at Maple Hall on the campus of Mount Saint Joseph, Sister Cheryl will weave the stories of these amazing women into a Day of Prayer and Reflection titled “Deepening Our Prayer Life: Advice from the Four Saint Teresas.” The retreat day during the fifth week of Lent will last from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The cost is $60, which will include lunch.
Participants will leave that day with ideas about how to be more faithful to prayer, ways to improve their prayer life, and tools to handle dryness or distractions in prayer, Sister Cheryl said.
“We will start with short bios on each of the saints,” Sister Cheryl said. “Then we will talk about the necessity of prayer, the obstacles to prayer, and the helps to prayer – such as doing it at the same time and having a dedicated space.” There will also be time for small group sharing.
“We’re going to offer a 15-minute section on spiritual direction, just to give people a taste of what that is like,” Sister Cheryl said. She is a trained spiritual director and has several more spiritual directors who will help with that section of the retreat. Father John Vaughan will also say the daily Mass during the day.
Sister Cheryl has been offering retreats, parish missions and OCIA programs for more than 30 years. She has extensive training in theology, Scripture, spirituality and spiritual direction.
The deadline to register is March 25.
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