St John of Avila: The Most Interesting Priest in the World

 Today we read about an interesting saint who was eventually made a Doctor of the Church due to his teaching and holiness. We read about St John of Avila in the book In Caelo et in Terra. If you're at all familiar with Catholic saints, you might be wondering if St John of Avila was familiar with St Teresa of Avila. In fact, he was! He knew her, and he also knew St Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits! Holiness was abounding in early 16th century Spain. 

St John was going to become a lawyer, but had a very profound conversion experience that left him wanting to become a priest instead. So he did. He wanted to go to America as a missionary, but while preparing to do so, the Bishop of Spain was so impressed with his teaching and preaching that he prevailed upon him to remain in Spain (with the rains in the plain). So instead of becoming a missionary, he became a renowned teacher and founded several universities.

I call him the most interesting priest in the world because he's an attractive bearded Spanish man like the "most interesting man in the world" from the Dos Equis commercials. You can read more about him here.

So many lessons we can learn from his life, but one is that things don't always go the way we plan them. He planned to become a lawyer... he planned to become a missionary... but God had other plans. It's important for us to keep our minds and futures open to what God has planned for us.

God, thanks for the example of flexibility by this Doctor of the church. St John of Avila, pray for us.