Finding Confidence in Times of Trial: Letters of St. John of Avila

by John of Avila

Indecision was not in his heart. Surrounded by clerical corruption and unprecedented consumerism, St. John of Avila (1500-1569) led the authentic effort to reform the Church and Christian society during one of its darkest hours.

When faced with spiritually bankrupt seminaries and lax universities, St. John simply founded new ones. When vast regions of his homeland lapsed into spiritual indifference, he spent a decade storming the cities and villages to reignite the Faith. He fearlessly denounced decadent leaders and withstood the subsequent interrogations of the Inquisition with perfect charity, winning over skeptics and melting the hearts of sinners.

For St. Francis de Sales he was "the learned and saintly preacher." St. Francis Borgia called him "the Great Master" and St. Teresa of Avila named him "the Master of things spiritual."

Pope Benedict XVI recently declared that he would name St. John of Avila the 34th "Doctor of the Universal Church."

And yet, most Catholics have never heard of him.

To help Catholics come to know the newest Doctor of the Church, Sophia Institute Press is releasing a collection of St. John’s finest letters. Each letter has been carefully translated and is now available so you can come to know the man Pope John Paul II held up as a model for clerical reform.

Among the many lessons you will learn from this new Doctor of the Church:

•The life-giving habits of an authentic Christian life, which are found not through false "conversions" and "visions," but in the slow and steady steps on the path of holiness.

•How suffering is frequently the means God chooses to reveal to His mercy and His design for our lives.

•True beauty: for a Christians it will shine out in poverty, chastity, and fidelity, not in the luxuries and comforts of this world.

•The easy graces of the liturgical year: one of the surest ways to develop in sanctity, and how Christians should ready themselves for the gifts which the Holy Spirit will send.

•The dangers of personal resolutions: These are often built upon pride and mistaken notions, but God sends us every day trials to transform us into His spiritual champions.

•How a Christian should prepare himself for Holy Mass, how to approach the Blessed Sacrament, and what real participation in the Sacrifice means.

•That weakness, persecution, and infidelity are often found within the institutional Church, and what we can do to combat it or at least suffer it faithfully.

Genres: Catholic, Religion, Spirituality

161 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 16, 2009

About the author

John of Ávila (Spanish: Juan de Ávila; 6 January 1499[1]– 10 May 1569) was a Spanish priest, preacher, scholastic author, and religious mystic, who has been declared a saint and Doctor of the Church by the Catholic Church. He is called the "Apostle of Andalusia", for his extensive ministry in that region.

Reviews

[Kelsey Grissom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can’t remember why I bought this little book. It was an engrossing read for two reasons. 1) John’s time was so very different from our own, and his theology has such different emphases and assumptions (for example: when was the last time you heard a sermon on the goodness of suffering?) 2) Even despite these differences (I could never preach the entirety of one of his sermons in any current context without shocking and offending people...myself at times included), and despite the span of centuries and translations, it is obvious what a powerfully gifted preacher John was. In several places he renewed and inspired my faith in ways that few writers have been able to do.

[Jeff Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being that I am somewhat immobilized with a muscle tear it at least has given me a chance for even more reading. So I started reading the letters of St. John of Avila. Due to the recent announcement that he will be made a Doctor of the Church I figured it would be a good idea to acquaint myself with a saint who preached to saints and whose preaching led to conversions of saints.

So far his letters have been just what I needed to read as they are so punctuated with the Gospel and his solid spiritual advice. It is hard to whine about my relatively minor pains reading his advice on suffering to those really suffering. There is just so much good stuff in his letters and yes I use stuff in the theologically technical sense. When his contemporary St. Teresa of Avila was being questioned about her teaching she was told to write it down and submit it to John of Avila and that they would go by what he had to say. In response St. John of Avila writes a great letter thanking her for what she has to say on prayer for his own soul while also making some suggestions for improving the clarity of her book to avoid confusion.

His letters are quite warm while showing great concern for a persons spiritual life and the dangers contained. One passage left me laughing in an example he gave.

While pondering over this truth, a holy hermit saw a woman of the world pass by, magnificently dressed and bejewelled. He burst into tears, exclaiming: “I beseech Thee to pardon me, O Lord, for this woman in one day takes more trouble to please men, than I have done in many years to please Thee!”

Now that is some holy humor! A footnote on this passage revealed.

The monk was St. Nonnus, Bishop of Heliopolis, and the woman St. Pelagia, an actress at Antioch, of bad repute, who had formerly been a catechumen. A few days after the incident recorded, she heard St. Nonnus preach a sermon on the Last Judgment, which so touched her heart, that she went to him and with many tears, begged him to baptise her. He did so, and, giving all her riches to the poor, she went to the Holy Land, where, under the name of Pelagius, she spent many years in penance, shut up in a narrow cell with only a small aperture for a window. She acquired the reputation of a Saint, and at her death, the people were surprised to discover that she was not a man: the virgins of the neighbourhood bore her body to their church as a rich treasure.

In another letter written to a Jesuit near death he playfully congratulates him on his upcoming promotion.

However, I am sending you my congratulations on your promotion to be prebendary 1 in the heavenly Jerusalem, where God is praised to all eternity and seen face to face.

Another footnote explains that a prebendary is he:

who resides within the precincts of a Cathedral and constantly attends its services, to that of the Saints who “stand before the throne” of God and “rest not day nor night, saying ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty,” and whose company the dying Jesuit hoped soon to join.

I just absolutely love this idea of death as a promotion for the faithful. Though prudentially I doubt if Hallmark will come up with “Congratulations on your upcoming promotion” cards for those who are dying. I do hope to be promoted one day and to avoid demotion.

You can get the letters in various ebook formats here. The formatting is not the best and there are obvious OCR translation errors. Though they are minor enough.

[Joseph Yue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contrary to the pervasive modern misconception, words are never abstract entities independent of their speaker, for the same sentences uttered by different people deliver significantly different effects. So are the consoling words of St. John of Ávila, whose unmatched example of living out the evangelical perfection much fortifies his already profound letters. Regardless of the worldly status of the recipient, he always writes as a true father, full of tender love yet authoritative and persuasive. If the sufferings of those who seek his advice can be compared to the sap dripping out of the wounds of a bleeding tree, then his words of consolation and encouragement is like a thurible that carries the burning-hot charcoal of ardent Divine Love, which transforms the product of excruciating pain into incense of sweet ordours most pleasing to God. A true vehicle of the power of the Holy Ghost, St. John's letters are still carrying out his mission today, perhaps much more so than his miraculous homilies that were nonetheless confined in space and time.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI named the (relatively) recently canonized Juan de Avila a Doctor of the Church. Reading this small volume of letters, it is easy to see why, as he had an amazing interior life and was an imminently insightful, spiritual master. Not knowing much about him, I was eager to read this as I am interested in a lot of the figures of the Counter Reformation in Spain that we have all heard about (Ignatius Loyola, Teresa of Avila, etc.) Juan de Avila was acquainted with both of these saints, as well as John of God, Francis Borgia and John of the Cross.

I think this edition could have been improved by introductions to each letter. The letters are not given any context and as I was eager to learn more about the saint since I love this era of Spanish history, I was disappointed because there isn’t much here biography-wise. I also agree that some of the advice he gives (particularly to a grieving mother) is perhaps not what we would call emotionally intelligent, at least from a modern perspective. However, he was a man consumed with his faith in God, so context is needed (all the more reason for introductions!) However, it is a nice spiritual gem for the devout to come back to from time to time.

[Karin · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading St John of Avila's letters, I can understand why Pope Benedict XVI named him a Doctor of the Church. There is great depth to his writing, but not so much that the average faithful Catholic cannot understand him or take something from what he writes.
This is one of those books that I will probably find myself going back to as I do with many of the saints' writings.
I downloaded this as an epub file for my Nook. I am trying to find a decent print copy. The Nook is great, but there are some books you just need to hold in your hands and mark up.

[Richard Grebenc · Rating 5 out of 5]

I quickly grabbed this book when I recognized it as the work of a recently proclaimed Doctor of the Church of whose work I was unfamiliar. The reader does not get far in the book before recognizing why Benedict elevated John of Avila to this status in 2012. Good advice presented plainly but charitably is the hallmark of this book of responses to letters St. John received. The reader can check out the ToC for helps in specific areas, but one can, as I did, read it from front to back and gain profit for the spiritual life in every chapter. Highly recommended -- a keeper.