simplicity and austerity, she went for counsel to the Father Fra
Pedro Ibanez, [13] the Dominican, a most holy and learned priest.
That father not only encouraged her, and commended her work, but
also ordered her to give him in writing the story of her
spiritual life. The Saint readily obeyed, and began it in the
monastery of the Incarnation, and finished it in the house of
Dona Luisa de la Cerda, in Toledo, in the month of June, 1562.
On the 24th of August, the feast of St. Bartholomew, in the same
year, the Reform of the Carmelites began in the new monastery of
St. Joseph in Avila.

What the Saint wrote for Fra Ibanez has not been found. It is,
no doubt, substantially preserved in her Life, as we have it now,
and is supposed to have reached no further than the end of
ch. xxxi. What follows was added by direction of another
Dominican father, confessor of the Saint in the new monastery of
St. Joseph, Fra Garcia of Toledo, who, in 1562, bade her "write
the history of that foundation, and other matters."

But as the Saint carried a heavy burden laid on her by God, a
constant fear of delusion, she had recourse about the same time
to the Inquisitor Soto, who advised her to write a history of her
life, send it to Juan of Avila, the "Apostle of Andalucia," and
abide by his counsel. As the direction of Fra Garcia of Toledo
and the advice of the Inquisitor must have been given, according
to her account, about the same time, the Life, as we have it now,
must have occupied her nearly six years in the writing of it,
which may well be owing to her unceasing care in firmly
establishing the new monastery of St. Joseph. The book at last
was sent to Blessed Juan of Avila by her friend Dona Luisa de la