John of Ávila

John of Ávila (Almodóvar del Campo, 1499 – Montilla, 1569) was a Spanish priest, preacher and mystical writer of the sixteenth century. He is known as the "Apostle of Andalusia" for his long missionary work in that region. In 2012 he was declared a Doctor of the Church, a recognition that places him among the spiritual authors most consulted in his time.

He was the son of a father of Jewish converso descent. He began law at Salamanca but left after a short time, and then studied philosophy and theology at Alcalá de Henares, where one of his teachers was the Dominican Domingo de Soto. After his parents died he gave his inheritance to the poor. He had planned to go as a missionary to New Spain, but the archbishop of Seville asked him to stay and preach in Andalusia. His sermons drew large crowds, but they also provoked suspicion. In 1531 he was denounced to the Inquisition in Seville, spent nearly two years in prison, and was finally acquitted, though he had to retract some statements he had made in his preaching.

From Córdoba, where he settled around 1535, he promoted seminaries and colleges and helped found the University of Baeza. He kept in touch with figures such as Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Borgia, Luis de Granada and Teresa of Ávila, and encouraged several of his disciples to join the Jesuits. Often in poor health from the early 1550s, he spent his last years in Montilla, where he died in 1569.

His writings are mostly spiritual and epistolary: sermons, letters to bishops and to people of very different conditions, and biblical commentaries. His style is plain and direct, shaped by the pulpit. He aimed to move his listeners rather than dazzle them, and his central themes were prayer, the formation of the clergy and the inner life of the believer.

His legacy is twofold. He has been patron of the Spanish secular clergy since 1946, and his writings were read and quoted for centuries by later spiritual authors, among them Francis de Sales and Antonio María Claret.