About the year 1528, the parents of St. John, Gonzalo de Yepes of Toledo and Catalina Alvarez of Toledo, were married in the village of Fontiveros on the plateau of Old Castile. It was not a mariage de convenance, but undeniably a love-match. Spanish biographers of the Saint tell us that, whilst Gonzalo was of ‘rich and noble parentage,’ Catalina was of parentage that was not noble nor perhaps reputable. But these same biographers, as if to soften Gonzalo’s misdemeanour in marrying beneath the family, take care to add that the young girl he loved was of rare beauty and virtue. As was to be expected in the Spain of the midsixteenth century, Gonzalo’s choice of a wife was never forgiven by the family. But, on the other hand, it was never repented of by Gonzalo; whose simplicity of mind seemed to think that a wife not only good but good-looking had the makings of a successful life-mate for himself and mother for his children.

We are not to take too seriously what the biographers say about the nobility of Gonzalo’s family. Their noble Castilian blood did not forbid the Yepes family from making their money by trading in silk. When Gonzalo’s marriage with Catalina meant his dismissal from the service of his silk-mercer uncle, love and poverty became the abiding guests of their home.

The most recent biographer of St. John has wisely drawn a picture of this home into which the doctor of Mysticism was born.