Today, we celebrate the feast day of John of Avila. He was named a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012, so he is one of our more recent Doctors of the Church. John lived in the 16th century, but he was not canonized as a saint until 1970. John of Avila was the patron of World Youth Day which was held in Madrid, Spain in 2011. It is interesting that John was the confessor and mentor of many reformers of the Church in Spain during the era of the Protestant Reformation, for people such as the Carmelites Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, who are Doctors of the Church as well. John was also a mentor and spiritual director to many of the men who joined a new religious order founded in this era by St Ignatius of Loyola - the Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuits. John himself was imprisoned during the Spanish Inquisition, as were many Church reformers and visionaries of that era. There is a quote from John of Avila which is relevant to us in what many go through in the modern world: “Dear brothers and sisters, I pray that God may open your eyes and let you see what hidden treasures he bestows on us in the trials from which the world thinks only to flee. Shame turns into honor when we seek God’s glory.”
The Gospel reading today speaks about the vine and branches, how Jesus is the vine, how the Father is the vine grower, how in our connection to the vine, we can bear fruit. I spoke about how John of Avila was connected to so many influential Spanish Catholics in an era of reform and great fruit, how he was a mentor and confessor to many of them. We ourselves need to feel intrinsically connected to our community of faith. We need to reach out to others and grow in our faith. Those connections will indeed help us on our journey.
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