I have similar problem. Spring 4 and Tomcat 8. I solve the problem with Spring configuration
<bean id="dataSource" class="org.apache.tomcat.jdbc.pool.DataSource" destroy-method="close">
<property name="initialSize" value="10" />
<property name="maxActive" value="25" />
<property name="maxIdle" value="20" />
<property name="minIdle" value="10" />
...
<property name="testOnBorrow" value="true" />
<property name="validationQuery" value="SELECT 1" />
</bean>
I have tested. It works well! This two line does everything in order to reconnect to database:
<property name="testOnBorrow" value="true" />
<property name="validationQuery" value="SELECT 1" />