John of Ávila was born in 1499 in Almodóvar del Campo (Ciudad Real). He studied in Salamanca and Alcalá de Henares, where Domingo de Soto was one of his professors. Ordained as a priest in 1526, John carried out extraordinary work in popular missions in southern Spain.
Rightly deserving the title of Apostle of Andalusia, Saint Teresa remarked upon hearing of his death that the Church had lost one of its pillars. John liked to surround himself with other priests who collaborated with him; his main friend and collaborator was Diego Pérez de Valdivia, who died in 1589. He was particularly interested in the formation of candidates for the priesthood, founding at least fifteen colleges for this purpose by the time of his death. It is not surprising that upon his beatification, he was named the patron of the Spanish clergy.
John of Ávila was a man of deep spirituality and practicality (probably of Jewish descent), a source of comfort and counsel to many. He lived to the age of seventy, passing away on May 10, 1569, in Montilla (Córdoba). He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1894 and canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1946.
John of Ávila was fortunate to have a biographer in the illustrious contemporary writer Fray Luis de Granada (among the Exemplary Lives he wrote). Among John of Ávila’s written works are Audi filia, which he wrote in prison when he was a victim, like other saints, of the Spanish Inquisition; Treatise on the Love of God, short but dense; Treatise on the Priesthood, very practical; his epistolary, important as a historical source; and the collection of his sermons and talks.
