ABSTRACT

Saint Teresa of Avila was named a Doctor of the Church by Pope Paul VI in 1970, nearly four hundred years after she was canonized in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV. The reason why she was made a saint before a doctor was the ecclesiastical seal of Obstat sexus, that is, "her sex does not allow it". Seventeenth-century women could speak in churches in a prophetic fashion, but they could not preach. Another woman who was probably in poor health and resorted to writing to seek spiritual reassurance was Anne Venn, she expresses her concern about the practical aspects of living in a state of grace and the ways in which she could be instrumental to the Lord. Elizabeth Major (fl. 1656) turned her affliction into a dialogue between "soul" and "consolation", and between "soul" and "echo", for a "comfortable contemplation" in her Honey on the Rod.