We should be thinking more about how to die than how to live.

Tell the old ladies in the back of the church that it’s the feast day of your favorite saint – they’ll be duly impressed: Saint Teresa of Ávila (I mention her at least twice a year).

She’s also known as the Roving Nun (not to be confused with the Wandering Nun, the Meandering Nun, or the Hopelessly Disoriented Nun). In case you’re still unsure who she is—she’s the one who was repeatedly pierced by God’s golden shaft of light, again and again and again. She’s the patron saint not only of Spain, but also of bodily ills, headaches, laceworkers, opposition to Church authorities, and people ridiculed for their piety.

She died in the arms of her close friend Anne of Saint Bartholomew, allegedly from Transverberation (“the crossing of verbs”). Her pierced heart is on display in Alba de Tormes, so if you’re the kind of person interested in 400-year-old pierced human hearts, you’ll probably want to pay a visit. (You’ll likely find it in the “Pierced Internal Organ Room” of the “Three-to-Five Hundred Ecstatic Orgasm Wing.”)

Saint Teresa famously said, “There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers.” (Truman Capote took this quote very seriously.) “God,” she also prayed, “deliver me from sullen saints!”

Friedrich Nietzsche – who was born on this day in 1844 – apparently shared her sentiments, if not her tactics. Being Germanic in nature, he thought God was dead, and therefore could not experience His golden shaft of light. But that’s another story.