Today is the feast day of St John of Ávila, commemorating the day on which he died in 1569. John was a priest, preacher, scholastic author, and religious mystic, and despite his name, is referred to as the "Apostle of Andalucia", for his extensive ministry in this region.

He was born in Almodóvar del Campo, in what is now the province of Ciudad Real, to a wealthy and pious couple of Jewish descent. At the age of 14, in 1513, he was sent to the University of Salamanca to study law, but returned home without a degree in 1517 where he spent three years in austere piety, before returning to university. This time he went to Alcalá de Henares to study philosophy and theology. Following his ordination in 1526, he planned to become a missionary in Mexico. But while waiting to board ship in Seville, was encouraged by the Archbishop of Seville to stay and help rebuild the faith in Andalucia.

In Seville he gathered a group pf disciples around him, in a form of fraternal life and started his missionary work. For nine years as a missionary in Andalucia, crowds packed the churches for his sermons. But despite this, he was denounced to the office of the Inquisition in Seville in 1531 and imprisoned, for his attacks on the wealthy. The charges were refuted and he was declared innocent and released in July 1533.

A year later he was installed as parish priest to a small benefice in the Diocese of Córdoba, and renewed his missionary work in Andalucia, including preaching and establishing schools and colleges in various neighbouring cities such as Granada, Baeza, Montilla and Zafra. The University of Baeza was established by papal bull in 1538 and John was invited to become its first rector.

From early 1551 John’s health began to deteriorate and he spent the last years of his life in semi-retirement in the town of Montilla, in the Province of Córdoba, dying there on 10 May 1569, and in accordance with his wishes was buried there in the Jesuit Church of the Incarnation. Today the old Church of the Incarnation has gone. But next to its site is the 18th century Basilica of St John of Ávila (pictured above).