After her religious profession, she was put in charge of the younger children. She put into her teaching competence and kindness which won the respect, admiration and love of her students. Although the teaching congregation she joined was not a missionary one, Dame Marie Louise inspired her wards with stories of the courage of missionaries in far-away lands. They, in turn, wrote letters to these missionaries and saved money for the missions. Thus, it was then that she got in touch with the Carmelite Fr. Victor Verleure in Mulagumoodu, India in 1891. Fr. Victor invited the Canonesses to send some of their sisters to his missions. Six years later, Dame Marie Louise herself would eventually set out for India, with Dame Marie Ursule to answer the call to help Fr. Victor in his work among the poor, especially the orphans. Thus, the ICM Congregation was born. From Asia, the Sisters of Mother Marie Louise spread to other parts of the world. They are now in Europe, Asia, the United States, Africa and Latin America. Their latest foundations (1995) are Outer Mongolia and Chad.

Teresa was born in Avila, Spain, in 1515 of good parents who reared their children in the spirit of Christianity. Teresa was charming, intelligent, and endowed with a lively sense of humor. When she was only seven years old, she and her brother Rodrigo ran away from home. They wanted to become martyrs because they thought it was the fastest way to heaven. They decided to find the country of the heathen Moors who would behead the young Christians that they were. But the would-be martyrs had not gone far when their uncle met them on the way and brought them back home.

When her mother died when she was still 13, her father decided to place her in a Covent of Augustinian nuns in Avila. After a year and a half in the Convent school, she became ill and she had to return home. It was during these days that she began to read letters of St. Jerome. She seriously began to consider entering a Convent but was disturbed by her father's reaction to such plans. Fearing that a delay might weaken her, she resolved to dedicate her life to God. She entered the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation in a suburb in Avila.Once again, she was struck by illness and suffered unskilled medical treatment that her health became permanently impaired. She attributed her partial recovery to the intercession of St. Joseph. Her suffering during the three years at home was spiritually fruitful in a sense that she developed mental prayer to a remarkable degree. When she returned to the convent, she cultivated her interior union with God and she began to experience certain manifestations that troubled her. She received visions of divine things and heard inner voices. Convinced that they were from God, she was perplexed. With simplicity, she sought to find an answer by confiding on her friends and confessors.

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