The Church celebrates the extraordinary life of St. John of God today. The saint lived through decades of sin and suffering before a profound conversion that led him to embrace poverty, humility, and charity. John was born in Portugal in the year 1495. Tragically, at the age of 8, he was kidnapped by a stranger and was later abandoned to homelessness in a remote part of Spain. He worked as a shepherd until age 22, when the opportunity came along for him to join the army of the Holy Roman Empire. This apparent stroke of fortune, however, would eventually lead John into greater misery.
For the next 18 years, John lived and fought among the emperor’s foot soldiers. His morals began to decline, as he completely abandoned the piety of his earliest youth for a greedy and brutal way of life. Despite falling into a lifestyle of violence and plundering, he had a certain weakness for those who were poor or in extreme distress and would give alms to them. Eventually, he decided to amend his life – beginning with a pilgrimage to Spain’s Santiago de Compostela Cathedral along the “Way of St. James.” There, he committed himself to living a life of repentance.
Later in his life, he felt compelled to give himself entirely to the service of the poor, sick, and vulnerable. He opened his house to them – allowing it to become a combined hospital, homeless shelter, and halfway-house, run entirely by John himself. When he was not bandaging wounded occupants or breaking up fights between them, he would go out begging on their behalf. The Bishop of Granada (Spain) approved his work, and gave him the name “John of God.” A group of volunteers came to accompany him in his work, many of whom had first come to him while in dire need themselves.
John served the sick and poor for 15 years before meeting his death through an act of charity. He jumped into a freezing river and managed to save a drowning man, but came home shivering and weakened from the ordeal. He lay down in one of his own hospital beds, where his condition further declined. The Bishop of Granada came to administer the last rites. As the bishop prepared him for death, John expressed a number of anxieties: For example, he said to the Bishop, “I have received so many graces from God, and have not recognized them, and have repaid them with so little of my own.”
At the end, John summoned his last strength to rise from bed and kneel before a crucifix. He died in prayer, with his face pressed against the figure of Christ, on the night of March 7, 1550. St. John of God was canonized in 1690 and has become the patron of hospitals and the dying.
Let us pray. “Loving Father, you gave St. John of God love and compassion for others. Grant, please, that by doing good for others we may one day be counted among the saints in your Kingdom. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
