Ana de Jesús, known in English as Anne of Jesus (25 November 1545 – 4 March 1621), was a Spanish Discalced Carmelite nun and writer.

She was the founder of the Carmelite reform and a close companion of Teresa of Ávila, and served to establish new monasteries of the Order throughout Europe.

The friar in charge of the monastery, Nicholas of Gesu Maria Doria, made changes requiring severe rigidity in the Constitutions of the nuns, drawn up by Teresa with the assistance of Jerome Gratian, and approved by a chapter in 1581.

Ann of Jesus, determined to preserve intact Teresa's work, with Doria's knowledge appealed to the Holy See for papal confirmation of their Constitutions.

Then, however, Doria complained to King Philip II of Spain that the nuns had gone over the head of their superiors, as a result of which the king twice forbade the meeting of a monastery chapter to receive the papal brief, and the nuns, and their advisers and supporters, the friars Luis de León and Domingo Bañez, fell into disgrace.

When the king finally heard the story from the nuns' point of view, he ordered that the internal council of the monastery resume its authority, and he further petitioned the Holy See for an approval of the Constitutions.

Doria resumed his authority over the nuns, but his first act was to punish Ana de Jesús severely for having made the appeal to the Holy See.

[2] Saint John of the Cross even entrusted the book to her which she conserved until 1586 when she gave it to the novice Isabel of the Incarnation, who took it to the foundations in Baeza and Jaén, where it was bound and is preserved.

When Ana saw Saint John of the Cross for the first time, he was all battered and hurt, she sent two nuns to sing Liras en Loor de los trabajos to him, when he heard just the first verse, they had such an impact on him he fell into ecstasy.

From the moment Teresa of Ávila met Ana de Jesus she became her favorite daughter, and, along with Mary of St. Joseph, were her pillars in her life and work.

At a time when she was struggling with the authorities of the Catholic Church in France, who wished to make many exceptions in their way of life, Ana de Jesús was called to Brussels by the Infanta Isabella and Archduke Albert in order to found a new monastery of the Discalced Carmelite nuns there.

The same year that Ana died, (1621), an ordinary beatification and canonization process started in the locations of Mechelen, Tournai, Cambrai, Arras and Antwerp.

The Holy See Press office stated that Pope Francis authorized the Congregation to promulgate the Decrees regarding "the heroic virtues of the Servant of God Ana de Jesús de Lobera (née Ana), professed nun of the Order of Discalced Carmelites; born on 25 November 1545 in Medina del Campo, Spain, and died on 4 March 1621 in Brussels, Belgium".

In Saint Therese's Story of a Soul she writes of a dream she has in which Venerable Anne of Jesus appears to her and lets her know that she will soon be able to go to heaven.

The first of these letters talk about the monastic foundations, spiritual advice, problems with the edition of his book Libro de Job or the translation to flamenco of Saint Teresa's writings; the second of these letters has a more intimate and personal tone, she writes her emotions, her suffering in the distance that separates them or about her health problems.