Everything about John Of Avila totally explained
» For the co-founder of the Carmelites, see Saint John of the Cross
Saint John of Avila, Apostle of Andalusia (b.
6 January 1500,
Almodóvar del Campo; d.
10 May 1569,
Montilla, Spain) was a
Spanish apostolic preacher, author, mystic and
saint, canonized in
1970. Known in
Spanish as
San Juan de Ávila.
Saint John of Avila was of Jewish converso descent. At the age of fourteen he was sent to the
University of Salamanca to study law but returned after a year to his father's home, where he spent the next three years in the practice of austere piety. His sanctity impressed a
Franciscan journeying through Almodóvar, on whose advice he took up the study of philosophy and theology at
Alcalá, where he was fortunate to have as his teacher the famous
Dominican Domingo de Soto. While he was a student his parents died and after his ordination he celebrated his first mass in the church where they were buried, sold the family property and gave the proceeds to the poor.
He saw in the severing of natural ties a vocation to foreign missionary work and prepared to go to
Mexico. In
1527, while he was in
Seville looking for a favorable opportunity to set out for his new field of labour, his unusually great devotion in celebrating mass attracted the attention of Hernando de Contreras, a priest of Seville, who mentioned him to the archbishop and general
inquisitor, Don
Alphonso Manrique. The archbishop saw in the young missionary a powerful instrument to stir up the faith in
Andalusia, and after considerable persuasion Juan was induced to abandon his journey to America.
His first sermon was preached on
22 July 1529, and immediately established his reputation; crowds thereafter packed the churches at all his sermons.At
Seville he was brought before the inquisitor and charged with exaggerating the dangers of wealth and closing the gates of heaven to the rich. His innocence of the charges was quickly proved, and by special invitation of the court he was appointed to preach the sermon on the next great feast in the church of San Salvador, in Seville. Like other Spanish mystics of the period, including
La Beata de Piedrahita, he was suspected several times during his career of belonging to the
Alumbrados, deemed a
heretical sect.
He began his career as apostolic preacher of Andalusia, aged thirty. After nine years he returned to Seville, only to depart for the wider fields of
Cordova,
Granada,
Bolza,
Montilla and
Zafra. For eighteen years before his death he was the victim of constant illness, the result of the hardships of his apostolate of forty years. He was declared Venerable by
Pope Clement XIII on
8 February 1799 and beatified by
Pope Leo XIII on
12 November 1893. In
1970 he was canonised by
Pope Paul VI.
Among the disciples attracted by his preaching and saintly reputation were
Saint Teresa of Ávila,
Saint John of God,
Saint Francis Borgia and the Venerable
Louis of Granada.
Saint John of Avila's works were collected at
Madrid in
1618,
1757, 1792 and 1805; a
French translation by d'Andilly was published at
Paris in
1673; and a
German translation by Schermer in six volumes was issued at
Regensburg between 1856 and 1881. His best-known works are the
"Audi Fili" (English translation, 1620), one of the best tracts on Christian perfection, and his
"Spiritual Letters" (English translation, 1631, reprinted London 1904) to his disciples.
Further Information
Get more info on 'John Of Avila'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://john_of_avila.totallyexplained.com">John of Avila Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
