#St. John of Avila

[gratiae-mirabilia]

st. john of avila

[momentsbeforemass]

John of Avila

Think of the great Saints of the Renaissance.

St. Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church and author of The Way of Perfection and The Interior Castle. St. John of the Cross, Doctor of the Church author of The Dark Night of the Soul. St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. St. Francis Borgia, superior general of the Jesuits. St. Peter of Alcantara, reformer of the Franciscans. St. Thomas of Villanova, archbishop of Valencia. St. John de Ribera. St. John of God.

It's a list of reformers and mystics, bishops and soldiers, firebrand preachers and quiet scholars.

What do they all have in common?

One person. Today’s saint, John of Avila.

All of them, at one point or another in their lives, were helped by John.

Whether it was a long-standing friendship, a professional correspondence, or just a moment when they needed someone in their corner, John was there for them.

And their contact with John was a life changer. Not because John was brilliant. Not because he knew the perfect thing to say. Not because he solved all their problems.

John was a life changer because he used the gifts that God gave him to support, to nurture, to encourage others.

If John found out you were struggling, he would reach out to you.

If there was something John could do to help you, he would.

And if you just needed someone to listen, John was there for you.

To be a source of hope and sign of God’s love in your life.

That’s what John did, in so many different ways, for the people in his life. And because he did it not in his own wisdom and strength, but in the grace and peace of God – the people in his life went on to become saints and to do things that we’re still talking about 500 years later.

Here’s where it gets personal. God’s call to you and me? It’s the same as His call to John.

God is calling you and me to be to be life changers for the people in our lives.

Just like John, God isn’t calling us to be brilliant, to have all the answers, or to solve all the problems.

God is calling us to support, to nurture, to encourage the people in our lives.

To reach out, to help, to listen. To be there. Not in our own wisdom and strength, but in the grace and peace of God.

To be a source of hope and sign of God’s love in their lives.

To be their John of Avila.

Today’s Readings

[anastpaul]

Nossa Senhora dos Remédios / Our Lady of Remedies, (Lamego, Portugal) 6th Century) Also known as – Nossa Senhora da Gruta / Our Lady of the Grotto – 14 November: HERE: https://anastpaul.com/2021/11/14/the-twenty-fifth-sunday-after-pentecost-nossa-senhora-dos-remedios-our-lady-of-remedies-lamego-portugal-6th-century-and-memorials-of-the-saints-14-november/

(via Nossa Senhora dos Remédios / Our Lady of Remedies, (Lamego, Portugal) 6th Century), St Josaphat Bishop and Martyr, and Memorials of the Saints – 14 November – AnaStpaul)

[myremnantarmy]

[portraitsofsaints]

Saint John of Avila Doctor of the Church  1500-1569 Feast Day: May 10 Patronage: Andalusia, Spain, Spanish secular clergy

Saint John of Avila, a Spanish priest, was an engaging preacher, wise confessor and spiritual director to saints like St. Teresa of Avila, St. Francis Borgia, St. John of the Cross, St. Ignatius of Loyola, to name a few. His missionary efforts were in Muslim dominated Southern Spain where he wasn’t afraid to denounce evil.  Saint John’s writings have become classics and he was named a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XVI.

Prints, plaques & holy cards are available for purchase here:{website}

[eelhound]

"If a poor man comes to you asking for bread, there is no end of complaints and reproaches and charges of idleness; you upbraid him, insult him, jeer at him. You fail to realize that you too are idle and yet God grants you gifts.

Now don’t tell me that you actually work hard. If you call earning money, making business deals, and caring for your possessions 'work', I say, 'No, that is not work. But alms, prayers, the protection of the injured and the like – these are genuine work.' You charge the poor with idleness; I charge you with corrupt behavior.

Don’t you realize that, as the poor man withdraws silently, sighing and in tears, you actually thrust a sword into yourself, that it is you who received the more serious wound?

Let us learn that as often as we have not given alms, we shall be punished like those who have plundered. For what we possess is not personal property; it belongs to all.

God generously gives all things that are much more necessary than money, such as air, water, fire, the sun – all such things. All these things are to be distributed equally to all.

'Mine' and 'thine' – these chilling words which introduce innumerable wars into the world – should be eliminated from the church. Then the poor would not envy the rich, because there would be no rich. Neither would the poor be despised by the rich, for there would be no poor. All things would be in common."

- Saint John Chrysostom, as quoted by Charles Avila from Ownership: Early Christian Teaching, 1983.

[catholic-saint-tournament]

Post-Schism Saints Round 1: Bracket Announcement

Round 1 for Post-Schism saints will open up on Sunday, 18 June! Above you'll find the bracket and below you'll find the pairings. Links will be added on Sunday for the actual polls. May the best saint win!!

St Francis of Assisi vs St Dominic

St Anthony of Padua vs St Bridget of Sweden

St Hildegard of Bingen vs St Alphonsus Liguori

St Ignatius of Loyola vs St Philip Neri

St Joseph of Cupertino vs St John of the Cross

St Thomas Aquinas vs St Francis de Sales

St Teresa of Avila vs St Juan Diego

St Rose of Lima vs St Julian of Norwich

St Joan of Arc vs St Roch

St Clare of Assisi vs St Christina the Astonishing

St Catherine of Siena vs St Bernard of Clairvaux

St Kateri Tekakwitha vs St Vincent de Paul

St Olga of Kiev vs St Louise de Marillac

St Rita of Cascia vs St Gertrude of Nivelles

St Martin de Porres vs St Elizabeth of Hungary

St Thomas More vs St Jadwiga (Hedwig) of Poland

[thepastisalreadywritten]

SAINT OF THE DAY (December 14)

December 14 is the liturgical memorial of Saint John of the Cross, a 16th-century Carmelite priest best known for reforming his order together with Saint Teresa of Avila and for writing the classic spiritual treatise “The Dark Night of the Soul.”

Honored as a Doctor of the Church since 1926, he is sometimes called the “Mystical Doctor,” as a tribute to the depth of his teaching on the soul's union with God.

The youngest child of parents in the silk-weaving trade, John de Yepes was born on 24 June 1542 in Fontiveros near the Spanish city of Avila.

His father Gonzalo died at a relatively young age, and his mother Catalina struggled to provide for the family.

John found academic success from his early years but failed in his effort to learn a trade as an apprentice.

He instead spent several years working in a hospital for the poor and continuing his studies at a Jesuit college in the town of Medina del Campo.

After discerning a calling to monastic life, John entered the Carmlite Order in 1563.

He had been practicing severe physical asceticism even before joining the Carmelites and got permission to live according to their original rule of life — which stressed solitude, silence, poverty, work, and contemplative prayer.

John received ordination as a priest in 1567 after studying in Salamanca but considered transferring to the more austere Carthusian order rather than remaining with the Carmelites.

Before he could take such a step, however, he met the Carmelite nun later canonized as Saint Teresa of Avila.

Born on 28 March 1515, Teresa had joined the order in 1535, regarding consecrated religious life as the most secure road to salvation.

Since that time, she had made remarkable spiritual progress. During the 1560s, she began a movement to return the Carmelites to the strict observance of their original way of life.

She convinced John not to leave the order but to work for its reform.

Changing his religious name from “John of St. Matthias” to “John of the Cross,” the priest began this work in November 1568, accompanied by two other men of the order with whom he shared a small and austere house.

For a time, John was in charge of the new recruits to the “Discalced Carmelites” — the name adopted by the reformed group, since they wore sandals rather than ordinary shoes as sign of poverty.

He also spent five years as the confessor at a monastery in Avila led by St. Teresa.

Their reforming movement grew quickly but also met with severe opposition that jeopardized its future during the 1570s.

Early in December 1577, during a dispute over John's assignment within the order, opponents of the strict observance seized and imprisoned him in a tiny cell.

His ordeal lasted nine months and included regular public floggings along with other harsh punishments.

Yet it was during this very period that he composed the poetry that would serve as the basis for his spiritual writings.

John managed to escape from prison in August 1578, after which he resumed the work of founding and directing Discalced Carmelite communities.

Over the course of a decade, he set out his spiritual teachings in works such as “The Ascent of Mount Carmel,” “The Spiritual Canticle” and “The Living Flame of Love” as well as “The Dark Night of the Soul.”

But intrigue within the order eventually cost him his leadership position, and his last years were marked by illness along with further mistreatment.

John of the Cross died in the early hours of 14 December 1591, nine years after St. Teresa of Avila's death in October 1582.

Suspicion, mistreatment, and humiliation had characterized much of his time in religious life, but these trials are understood as having brought him closer to God by breaking his dependence on the things of this world.

Accordingly, his writings stress the need to love God above all things — being held back by nothing, and likewise holding nothing back.

Only near the end of his life had St. John's monastic superior recognized his wisdom and holiness.

Though his reputation had suffered unjustly for years, this situation reversed soon after his death.

He was beatified by Pope Clement X on 25 January 1675. He was canonized by Pope Benedict XIII on 27 December 1726.

He was named a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XI in 1926.

In a letter marking the 400th anniversary of St. John's death, Pope John Paul II — who had written a doctoral thesis on the saint's writings — recommended the study of the Spanish mystic, whom he called a “master in the faith and witness to the living God.”

John of the Cross was a great saint who was a reformer, a mystic, and one of the great Spanish poets.

He has inspired many other holy men and women to pursue God into the mysterious heights and depths of divine love.

[brittanytaylorbarber]

The Art of "The Passion of St. George"

Classical art is a huge part of the narrative in my story, “The Passion of St. George.” Not only is it an art piece with a mythological subject that instigates the horror and starts the plot, but Sally, the main character, is an art history major and very passionate about art. Because of this, Sally references a lot of real art pieces in her narration. I thought would be a good idea to put…

[compassionmattersmost]

A Christian Mystic is Also a Yogi: Bridging the Spiritual Traditions

In the quiet corners of monasteries, amidst the echo of chanting monks, and within the solitude of wilderness hermitages, Christian mystics have, for centuries, sought to experience a profound union with the Divine. They have traveled inward, transcending the boundaries of ego, and have entered into a sacred communion with God. Their journey is one of deep contemplation, marked by an ascetic…

[ghostsandgod]

St Teresa begins by describing the reason which led her to found the first Reformed Carmelite convent - viz, the desire to minimize the ravages being wrought in France and elsewhere by Protestantism, and, within the limits of her capacity, to check the passion for a so-called 'freedom', which at that time was exceeding all measure. Knowing how effectively such inordinate desires can be restrained by a life of humility and poverty, St Teresa extols the virtues of poverty and extols her daughters to practise it in their own lives. Even the buildings in which they live should be poor: on the Day of Judgment both majestic palaces and humble cottages will fall, and she has no desire that the convents of her nuns should do so with a resounding clamour.

-The Way of Perfection

[catholicsaintquotes33ad]

[blushcoloreddreams]

October novenas

For whoever this could interest, here’s a list of this month’s novena’s and the reasons to pray them for yourself and for others.

St. John Paul II: For healing, for courage, for the youth. Starts October 13th

All Saints Day: For intercession of all saints. Starts on October 23

Our lady of Aparecida: from October 3rd to October 10. Patron Saint of Brazil, very used to ask for help in moments of affliction

Blessed Carlos Acutis: For a greater love of the Eucharist, for the youth, for computer programmers. Starts October 3rd

St. Jude: Lost causes. Starts on October 19

Holy souls in purgatory: souls in purgatory

St. Therese of Avila: For those who suffer from headaches. Starts October 6th

St. Luke: for those preparing for surgery or recovering from surgery Starts October 9th

St. Hedwig: for the relief from debt and for help with financial difficulties Starts October 7th

All Souls’ Day: the faithful departed/ souls in purgatory. Starts on October 24

St. Anthony Mary Claret: physical healing, spiritual healing. Starts October 15

St. Gerard Majela : for a healthy pregnancy and for childbirth/ delivery Starts October 7

St. Charles Borromeo: for bishops, seminarians and catechists. Starts on October 26

St. Margarida Maria Alacoque: October 7th

Saint Ignacio of Antioquia: For conversion and for those being persecuted for their faith.

Saint Peter of Alcantara: starts on October 10th To strengthen our faith

Saint Antonio Galvão: for engineers, architects and construction workers. Starts From October 16th.

[catholicmemoirs]

Carmelite Reading List for the Catholic Laity

This is my reading plan while I continue to adopt the lifestyle of the Traditional Lay Carmelites of Fatima. The prioress adopted the rule after "A Way of Perfection for the Laity", so I copied the list of readings from there.

Links to free downloads of Traditional Catholic texts:

Way of Perfection for the Laity

Carmelite 1953 Daily Missal (good for daily Gospel readings)

Goffine's Devout Instructions for Epistles and Gospels for Sundays and Holydays

Pictorial Lives of the Saints

Daily:

1. Holy Gospels

2. Lives of the Saints

This is the recommended list of authors in "A Way of Perfection for the Laity":

1. The Imitation of Christ

2. By St. Teresa of Avila

ii. The Book of the Foundations

iii. Minor Works

iv. The Letters

v. The Interior Castle

vi. The Life

3. By St. John of the Cross

i. Ascent of Mount Carmel

ii. The Dark Night of the Soul (The Obscure Night)

4. By St. Teresa of Lisieux: Story of a Soul

5. By St. Francis De Sales

i. Introduction to the Devout Life

ii. Treatise on the Love of God

6. By St. Alphonsus Liguori

i. True Spouse of Christ

ii. Glories of Mary

iii. Visits to the Blessed Sacrament

My 2025 Liturgical Reading List

I took the list above and put a different author per month. The new liturgical year begins December 1st!

Dec: The Imitation of Christ

Jan: The Way of Perfection (St. Teresa of Avila)

Feb: Ascent of Mount Carmel (St. John of the Cross)

Mar: Story of a Soul (St. Therese of Lisieux)

Apr: Introduction to the Devout Life (St. Francis De Sales)

May: True Spouse of Christ (St. Alphonsus Liguori)

Jun: The Book of the Foundations (St. Teresa of Avila)

Jul: The Dark Night of the Soul (St. John of the Cross)

Aug: Treatise on the Love of God (St. Francis De Sales)

Sep: Glories of Mary (St. Alphonsus Liguori)

Oct: Minor Works (St. Teresa of Avila)

Nov: Visits to the Blessed Sacrament (St. Alphonsus Liguori)

Enjoy!

[loneberry]

some notes on sufism

The other day I went to the Harvard Divinity School Muslims iftar (the meal that breaks the fast during Ramadan), which was followed by a concert of Turkish music that is traditionally performed in Sufi lodges in Istambul. Before the music began, the professor I’ve been auditing Islamic literature classes with read some verses from Rumi’s Masnavi and offered a meditation on fasting through an interpretation of the lines: “If you have closed this mouth, another mouth is opened, which becomes an eater of the morsels of mysteries.” That is the nature of mystical knowledge—gnosis (or maʿrifa) is not understood intellectually, but tasted (dhawq). The closing of the bodily mouth is an opening of the spiritual mouth. He asked us to listen to the music with the inner heart.

I went with my friend S, who has been nudging me toward conversion. I’ve been allergic to religion most of my life because I’m not really much of a joiner. I distinctly remember being in (Catholic) Sunday School as a child and thinking to myself: This sounds fake to me. As in, made-up, irrational. The people who treated the fanciful stories like fact seemed like crackpots to me, even to my child-mind. I don’t think I ever believed in Santa either—I guess my disposition was innately skeptical; perhaps that contributed to my identification with anarchism from when I was 13 or 14. Yet at the same time, my feeling for the invisible, for the world of the dead, was always quite strong, even when it was unstitched from a belief system. As a kid I would wander the house alone at night, thinking I could hear my dead parakeet chirping from a shoebox in the garage.  

I hated Sunday School. While I was always good at school-school (at least when I was a child, before I became an incorrigible truant), I was terrible at Sunday School. Because it seemed like hocus-pocus to me, none of it stuck. My classmates had internalized all the stories I thought were outlandish. During mass I would think exclusively about donuts, the ones we would buy from the ladies who would sell them as a fundraiser. I’ve thought about returning to Catholicism, but sadly, after the post-1970s political realignment in the US, all the leftist Catholics (the Marxists who loathed the Vietnam War and exposed the FBI’s COINTELPRO) are gone. As much as I love reading Catholic mystics (St Teresa of Avila, St John of the Cross, Angela of Foligno, Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Marguerite Porete, and others), Christian mysticism is more individualist than Islamic mysticism—asceticism and separation from the group is the way to commune with God, while Islamic mysticism is rooted in communal practices like sama (singing, dancing, reciting poetry, playing/listening to music) and dhikr (communal prayer for the remembrance of God). While Christian mysticism bears the imprint of the Neoplatonist trajectory of ascent, for Sufism, the trajectory is shaped like a paisley. After fana (annihilation of the ego/union with God/dying before you die), there is baqaa or subsistence, a return of sorts. 

I also much prefer the Islamic orientation to the created world than the Christian one, for in Islam, everything in creation can be understood as the breath or speech of God. The Hadith on which Sufi cosmology is based reads, “I was a hidden Treasure and Loved to be known, so I created the world that I might be known.” All of creation is a mirror to reflect God (this is why you must polish the rust from your heart, for the human heart can manifest all the names and qualities of God). In the Islamic mystical tradition there is an affirmation of the created world even though God and creation are not the same (as is the case in Pantheism). Everything has ontology. Nothing has ontology. The Sufi metaphysicians ask us to see with two eyes. The drop is not the ocean at the same time it cannot be separated from the ocean.

7 years ago I read Reza Aslan’s God: A Human History. After sampling the platter of world religions I joked to myself, Hmmm, if I had to pick the one I vibe with most, I guess it would be Sufism (Islamic mysticism). I didn’t know anything about Sufism other than the Rumi and Hafez poetry I read as a teenager, but the way Aslan described Ibn ‘Arabi’s concept of 'wahadat al-wujud' (or Unity of Being) reminded me of Spinozism. I guess what I’m trying to say is...I just think Sufi metaphysics is...right. Or, it speaks to how I tend to think about reality. It’s not something I can prove (that I don’t exist, while at the same time I am part of the ALL that is God), but it makes the most sense to me.

In the Sufi literature class, S jokes to me: “You’re the only non-Muslim in this class.” The same was probably true at the iftar + concert. S points to someone from the class: “The Maoist is a recent convert. This is their first time fasting for Ramadan.” “Is [our professor] fasting?” “Of course. I saw him at the iftar last night and talked to him about translation. I told him it’s ghastly to try to fit Persian verse into an English rhyme scheme. He agreed with me.” (We are clearly partisans of blank verse translations… yet so much of what’s out there has been poorly translated or not translated at all.) 

Much of the lyrics sung with the gorgeous music were verses written by the great Turkish-language Sufi poet and mystic Yunus Emre ("the Dante of Turkey," I whispered to S). S was ecstatic listening to the haunting ney (a kind of flute). We just so happened to be sitting in the same row as the professor. I tapped S and whispered that it looked like he was really enjoying the music. He was smiling with his eyes closed and swaying his head from side to side. He looked like he was having...a profound experience. This prof usually has what I guess you’d call ‘resting bitch face’ (which I always found funny because it runs counter to his sweet and gentle personality). But not at the concert. Pure bliss was painted on his face. It was then that it dawned on me that Sufism, for him, was probably something more than a scholarly interest. I thought about what it must have been like to discover something so beautiful and profound, and to know, in that moment, that your life will be changed forever—you might go off to Iran and devote your entire life to studying medieval texts. 

Of course this Ramadan I am thinking continuously about the genocide in Gaza, how an entire population is being starved to death by the sadistic leaders of Israel, how terrible it must be to be bombed and shot at during the holy month, or to break your fast with boiled grass and animal feed. I feel truly ashamed to come from a country that is complicit in this violence. I hope everyone continues to apply pressure to end this war—it feels hopeless now, but it is making a difference.

[portraitsofsaints]

Happy Feast Day

Saint Teresa of Avila

Doctor of the Church

1515 - 1582

Feast Day: October 15

Patronage: bodily ills; headaches; lacemakers; loss of parents; people in need of grace; people in religious orders; people ridiculed for their piety

St. Teresa of Ávila, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada, was a prominent Spanish mystic, Carmelite nun, writer of the Counter Reformation, and theologian of contemplative life through mental prayer. She was a reformer of the Carmelite Order and is considered to be a founder of the Discalced Carmelites along with John of the Cross.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase. (website)