By Michael Pakaluk, The Catholic Thing - St. Theresa of Avila, whose memorial we honor on Friday, is candid about her motives for taking the habit: “The trials and distresses of being a nun could not be greater than those of purgatory. . . .It would not be a great matter to spend my life as though I were in purgatory, if afterwards I were to go straight to Heaven, which is what I desired.”