Saint John Of God. Confessor. Feast Day 8 March.

Text from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless stated otherwise.

Saint John Of God.
   Confessor.
   Feast Day 8 March.

Double.

White Vestments.

English: Saint John of God.

Español: La obra representa a San Juan de Dios (1495-1550), de orígen portugués y fundador de la Orden Hospitalaria de San Juan de Dios. En la obra, el santo cae a tierra por llevar a un enfermo, y el Arcángel Gabriel aparece milagrosamente para ayudarle.

Artist: Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682).

Date: Circa 1672.

This File: 30 March 2016.

User: Tiberioclaudio99

(Wikimedia Commons)

Saint John of God was born in Portugal in 1495. After a stormy youth, at the age of forty he was one day listening to The Word of God, when he felt himself so inflamed with Divine Charity towards his neighbour, that he distributed all he possessed to The Poor and Consecrated his life to their service.

The Love of God  is one with that of our neighbour, says the Gospel, for men bear in themselves the image of The Heavenly Father, Whose sons they are, in virtue of their union with God and Jesus by Grace.

Through his disinterestedness, and thanks to alms (Epistle), which Saint John obtained for the erection of two large hospitals at Granada, “he enriched The Church with a new family” (Collect), which took the name of Brothers Hospitallers of Saint John of God, and which, imitating Christ in His Apostolic Life, devotes itself to the healing of bodies and of Souls.

A great fire having broken out in a hospital, he fearlessly rushed into the flames and saved all the sick, because the fire burning in his heart was greater than that which raged around (Collect).

Saint John, whose Divine Love caused his name to be joined to the name of God, was continually absorbed in the contemplation of Heavenly things (Introit). Struck down by a severe illness, after receiving The Last Sacraments, he fell on his knees and died, pressing to his heart the Crucifix. This happened at Granada in 1550.

Pope Leo XIII declared him Patron of Hospitallers and of The Sick, and commanded his name to be placed in The Litanies of The Dying.

Following the example of Saint John of God, let us fill our hearts with the fire of Divine Charity, which will purify us of our vices, and let us have recourse to the protection of this Saint, that we may always be provided with the remedies which conduce to Eternal Life (Collect).

Mass: Os justi.

Commemoration: In Lent. Of The Feria.

Last Gospel: In Lent. Of The Feria.