The Josefa Segovia Chair, Mysticism and Laity, developed in collaboration with the Centro Internacional Teresiano Sanjuanista (CITeS) in Ávila, has a new team and a new academic director who have already begun designing the next course.
María del Carmen Aragonés, sector director of the Teresian Association in Spain, recently announced the changes in the team of the Josefa Segovia Chair in the Universidad de la Mística in Ávila. Antonia Martín Sánchez is the new academic director, for a renewable term of three years.
Antonia Martín holds a PhD in Psychology from Comillas Pontifical University, specializing in Biblical Spirituality, and a master's degree in Family Research. Among other roles, she is currently a tenured professor at the ESCUNI University Education Center. The Chair's team consists of María Jesús González Garmendia, PhD in Chemistry, who has been part of the Chair since 2013; Mª Dolores Jiménez Ruiz, architect and member of ACIT; and Juan Carlos Torre Puente, PhD in Education, professor at ESCUNI. The new team has already started work and has had a first meeting with CITeS staff to look forward to next year’s course. The title for this will be “To love with passion and compassion”. It will be the fifteenth course and will be held from 13th to 15th March 2026.
Gratitude to the previous team
María del Carmen Aragonés expressed her gratitude to Carmen Azaustre, her predecessor as academic director, and to the team: Ana Gutiérrez, Estrella Somoano, and María Jesús González Garmendia.
Ana Gutiérrez, Carmen Azaustre, Jerzy Nawojowski OCD, director of CITeS, and Mª Jesús González Garmendia.
“These have been years of intense and magnificent work, which have resulted in the relevance of the topics addressed, the richness of the speakers and participants in the round tables, and the opportunity for the 's publications. All of this has made it possible to expand the audience for its courses and to generate great interest in these publications, which have provided an updated reflection on lay spirituality,” Aragonés states in her letter.
For its part, CITeS, on its website, “deeply appreciates the generous and creative dedication of the team that has accompanied the in recent years.” It adds that “their work has been decisive in consolidating this platform for dialogue between faith, science, and culture, and in promoting the charism of the Teresian Association in a profound and timely manner in Ávila’s university and spiritual context.”
Publications
The Josefa Segovia Chair was created in 2010 with the aim of “showing how lay spirituality can develop its specific dimensions of mystical experience” and to study in depth Josefa Segovia's spiritual experience. In addition to classes in person, courses are also available in distance learning mode. The courses developed are published jointly with CITeS each year.
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