Teresa of St. Rose of Lima was born on 29th of January 1858 in George Town, Madras, India, to Peter D'Lima and Mary D'Lima. She received the name Mary Grace on baptism in St. Mary's Co-Cathedral, two days after her birth. Her mother died when she was little, so her father took care of her education.
She attended the school of the Presentation Sisters, where she distinguished herself for intelligence, musical talent, modesty, earning the esteem of the teachers. Her first contact with Carmel came in 1879, when she assumed the position of principal of the parish school, founded in Alleppey by the Carmelite priest Fr. Alphonsus, whose zeal aroused in Grace the desire to embrace religious life in the Carmelite Order, which happened in 1883, when she received the habit of a Carmelite tertiary from the hands of Fr. Candidus taking the name of Sr. Teresa of St. Rose of Lima.
When her father died in 1884, she took her two younger sisters under her care. On May 25 of the following year she made her solemn profession. In addition to the task of principal, she also took on her shoulders the care of the convent and the responsibility of hospitality.
When, in 1887, she suddenly had to leave for Ernakulan, Kerala, she recognized a call from the Lord. A period of great activity began: She founded the Third Order Sisters of Our Lady of Mt Carmel, known today as the Institute of the Carmelite Sisters of St. Teresa (CSST) on 24th of April, and also founded St. Teresa's English Medium School for Girls on 9th of May and a convent on August 16; in 1889 she opened an orphanage, in 1892 an infirmary for sick orphans and a school for children; in 1893 an industrial school with a small rope production unit; in 1884 a home for the elderly. Her many social activities, undertaken in conditions of extreme material poverty to give a practical follow-up to the invocation «Thy Kingdom come», were aimed at forming and educating the least to restore to them the dignity of children of God which had been trampled upon. All of this earned her the esteem of the authorities and various awards. To carry out the apostolate in the best possible way, her great concern was to form the young sisters adequately, both from a practical and a spiritual point of view.
In 1897 she and her sisters did their utmost to support the program with which the government of Cochin, which had often previously hindered her, tried to cope with the famine. Evangelization always remained the soul of her various activities, as also shown by the initiative of 1898 to organize for the first time a Eucharistic celebration in the local prison. In 1900 Sr. Teresa opened a shelter for single mothers; in 1901 she made a trip to Europe and visited Lourdes.
The following year, on September 13, 1902, during her second trip to Europe, she died tragically in a train accident.
The Diocesan Inquiry into her «life, virtue and reputation of holiness» was opened on 22nd of August 2015 in the Bangalore Diocese. On 9th of December 2020, the decree of validity was granted.
