Alonso de Orozco was born on 17 October 1500 in Oropesa, Spain. He studied at the choir school of the Cathedral of Toledo, and then at the University of Salamanca. He made his religious profession at the hands of Saint Thomas of Villanova about the year 1520, He was ordained a priest in about the year 1527.

He was a gifted preacher. He preached to kings and simple people alike. In common with his superior, Saint Thomas of Villanova, he valued his Augustinian vocation as one of the greatest gifts that God ever gave to him. In the Order he chose to make preaching and writing his main apostolates. Of all the mystics in Spain in the sixteenth century, he was the most read of his own day. Some twenty works of his in Spanish went though many editions. There still exists a large collection of sermons in Latin, culled from his long preaching career.

In 1554, when Prior of the Augustinian community at Valladolid, the city of the royal court, he was appointed to the post of Royal Preacher to the emperor Charles V. 

He moved to Madrid when the royal court did so in the year 1561. The life of Alonso was very austere and filled with prayer, even while he was resident at the royal court. His most attractive quality was that he was at ease with people of every background, and they with him. He was available to absolutely anyone who sought him.

He remained devoted to the Order of Saint Augustine. He strove by his writings about its history and spiritual tradition to attract applicants for new membership in it. He desired to bring about internal reform of the Order, and to that end founded monasteries of men and women, which soon led to the Recollect movement within the Order in Spain. Alonso was one of three Spanish Augustinians considered for a mission to England to attempt to regain Augustinian monasteries during the brief reign of the Catholic monarch and daughter of King Henry VIII, Queen Mary Tudor from 1553 to 1558.

Her spouse whom she wed in July 1555 was the son of King Charles V of Spain, and was later to become King Philip II of Spain. Alonso was considered for this role because he was known to the Spanish royal family as a preacher; one of the other Augustinian was eventually selected, but failed to be granted permission to enter.

On 19 September 1591, after an illness of several weeks duration, Alonso died at the age of ninety, mourned by young and old, wealthy and poor, the humble and the great. He was buried in the church of the College of the Incarnation in Madrid. In 1853 his remains were transferred to the community chapel of the Valladolid monastery and later placed in an altar of the new church there. Finally in 1978 they were returned to Madrid to rest in the chapel of the Augustinian contemplative nuns of Talavera de a Riena.

He was declared to be one of the Blessed (beati) of the church by Pope Leo XIII on 15 January 1882. He was officially declared a saint of the church by Pope John Paul II on 19 May 2002.

Links

Alonso de Orozco. Alonso de Orozco was born on 17th October 1500 in Oropesa, Spain. He entered the Order of Saint Augustine in 1522, and was a gifted preacher. He preached to kings and simple people alike. From a web page by the Midwest Augustinians, USA.
http://midwestaugustinians.org/st-alfonso-de-orozco

Saint Alonso de Orozco. He was officially declared to be a saint by Pope John Paul II on 19 May 2002. Of all the mystics in Spain in the sixteenth century, he was the most read of his own day. Some twenty works of his in Spanish went though many editions, and some of them were translated into other languages. There still exists a large collection of sermons in Latin, culled from his long preaching career…. From the web site of the Augustinians in California, USA.
http://osa-west.org/?s=alonso

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