Bl. Alphonsus de Orozco

Mystic and court chaplain, born in 1500 in Oropesa, Spain. He studied at Talavera, Toledo, and Salamanca, and became an Augustinian at the age of twenty-two. St. Thomas of Villanova was one of his instructors, imbuing him with a spirit of recollection and prayer. Alphonsus, a popular preacher and confessor, served as prior of the Augustinians in Seville and then in 1554, at Valladolid. In 1556 he became a court preacher, and in 1561 accompanied King Philip II of Spain to Madrid. Throughout his court life, he did not engage in the pleasures or intrigues around him. His example of holiness made a great impression on the royal family and the nobles of Madrid. Alphonsus was given a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and wrote treatises on prayer and penance as Our Lady instructed him. He was beatified in 1881.