Religious, founder of the Brothers Hospitallers, patron of the sick · Feast: 8 March
Open in the Daily Word app“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Matthew 25:40
John Ciudad was born in 1495 at Montemor-o-Novo in Portugal. As a boy of about eight he left home in circumstances that are not clear and ended up at Oropesa in Spain, where he worked as a shepherd. As a young man he served as a soldier for the Count of Oropesa in the wars of the emperor Charles V, and he lived carelessly and lost his faith for a time. He later worked as a shepherd near Seville and as a labourer in North Africa, where he helped a family of Portuguese exiles.
Returning to Spain, he became a seller of religious books and pictures, and around 1538 he opened a small shop in Granada. On 20 January 1539 he heard a sermon by St John of Avila. It pierced him so deeply that he began to cry out in the streets, gave away his books and possessions, and behaved so wildly that people thought him mad. He was taken to the Royal Hospital and treated as the insane were treated then, with chains and whips. There he saw how the sick poor were treated, and he resolved to care for them. John of Avila became his guide.
He rented a house in Granada and began to bring in the sick and homeless, carrying some on his own back and begging for them through the streets at night. He cared for them with his own hands, washed them, fed them and prayed with them. The bishop of Tuy gave him the name John of God and a habit. Friends and followers gathered round him, among them Anton Martin and Pedro Velasco, once bitter enemies.
In 1550, already worn out, he went into a flooded river to rescue a young man from drowning, and he became gravely ill. He died in Granada on 8 March 1550, on his knees, it is said, before a crucifix. His companions became the Brothers Hospitallers of St John of God, approved by Pope St Pius V in 1572, who still serve the sick in many countries, including India. He was canonised in 1690, and he is honoured as a patron of the sick, of hospitals and of nurses.
He was past forty, with a wasted life behind him, when he began.
Whatever is done for the suffering is done for him.
He put his wild zeal under the direction of a wise priest.
He went looking for the poor in the streets at night.
At night John walked through Granada with a basket and pots on his shoulders, calling out: who does good to himself? Do good to yourselves, brothers, for the love of God. He taught that a gift to the poor benefits the giver most of all.
When a great fire broke out in the Royal Hospital of Granada, John ran into the flames again and again, carrying out the sick and throwing bedding from the windows, and came out unharmed. Those who saw it counted it a miracle.
It is told that John was washing the feet of a poor man when he saw in them the wounds of the Lord, and the man told him that all he did for the poor he did for Christ.
If we look forward to the mercy of God, we shall never fail to do good so long as we have the strength.
St John of God, Letter to the Duchess of Sessa, in substance
A man who failed for forty years became a saint.
Christ waits in the sick (Matthew 25:40).
The one who gives receives the most.
Dear friends, some saints seem holy from the cradle. St John of God was not one of them. He ran away from home as a boy, worked as a shepherd, went to war, lost his way, and sold books for a living. He was over forty when a sermon broke his heart. If you think your life is already too far gone for God to do anything with it, today's saint has something to say to you.
People thought him mad. He was whipped in a hospital for the insane. But there, among the chained and the beaten, he found his vocation. God often speaks to us from the very place where we have been humiliated. John came out of that hospital resolved that the sick poor should be treated as Christ himself.
Jesus told us this plainly: just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me (Matthew 25:40). John carried the sick on his back, washed them, begged for them at night and called out: do good to yourselves, brothers, for the love of God. It is an astonishing thing to say to a person who is being asked for money. He knew that the giver gains more than the one who receives.
Let us think today of the sick person we have not visited, of the old parent who is a burden, of those who care for the sick in our hospitals and homes. Let us bring them all to this Holy Mass / Holy Qurbana, and ask St John of God to give us his hands and his heart, while we still have the strength. Amen.
O God, who filled St John of God with the spirit of compassion, grant that through his prayers we may serve you in the sick and the poor, and at the last be counted among those you welcome into your kingdom. Amen.