The Cloud of Witnesses

Bishop of Hippo Regius in Roman North Africa. Son of the pagan Patricius and the Christian Monica. Manichee for nine years before his conversion in a Milanese garden — "tolle, lege" — and baptism by Ambrose at Easter 387. Author of the Confessions, the De Trinitate, the City of God. Died with the Vandals at the gates of Hippo.

Son of the cloth merchant Pietro di Bernardone. Stripped naked in the piazza of Assisi to give his father back his cloth. Rebuilt San Damiano stone by stone. Founded the Friars Minor. Met the Sultan al-Kamil during the Fifth Crusade at Damietta. Received the stigmata on Mount La Verna in 1224. Wrote the Canticle of the Creatures while going blind. Died lying on the bare earth.

Teresa de Jesús, Carmelite nun, mystic, reformer. Of converso Jewish ancestry on her father's side. Founded seventeen monasteries of Discalced Carmelite nuns and, with John of the Cross, the friars to match. Wrote the Vida, the Way of Perfection, the Foundations, and the Interior Castle. Investigated by the Inquisition. Declared Doctor of the Church four centuries after her death.