The Unusual Story of Saint John of God
The perpetual snows of the high Sierras were made silverwhite by the quiet radiance of the moon. And the cold winter blew down on a sleeping city, Granada. The numerous bell towers were silent. The narrow, winding streets deserted. And even behind the massive walls of the Royal Hospital, in the wards of the mentally disturbed, the peace of the night had brought some tranquility. We pass bed after bed, each holding its burden of human misery, until we come to an empty by the wall beneath the window. An empty bed - rather, a bed that has become the support for the young man kneeling beside it. His face, lighted by the moon, expresses the torment of his mind. It is a face stained and beaten, with eyes fixed on heaven. And his lips seem to utter over and over again but one prayer: “Mercy, O my Lord! Lord have mercy!” His name is John –John Ciudad. ********** A child coming into the world doesn’t really ask for too much. He only asks for a mother and a father to care for him, to be near him. With a good parent on either side, he is able to walk through the dependent years confident and unafraid. To John Ciudad, so much of this was denied, that one may trace his great personality difficulties to a childhood lived outside the warmth of parental love. For, after age of eight, he never saw his parents again. Why he was separated from them as a child, we do not know. Had they died, leaving orphan? Or according to the anti-Sematic laws of the time, were his parents-- if they were Jewish, as some believe—banished from the nation of Portugal — Ciudad’s native land—and he given to others that he might be raised a Christian ? Who knows? Who can say? This much we do know, and this much we can say: Time—called the great healer—never healed the wound inflicted on a mind that was especially sensitive. And the circumstances and situations of his adult life reflect again and again the anxieties of his childhood. In God’s mysterious plan, John Ciudad is to become a saint. A Saint, yes– but the saint of the unhappy, the anxious, the disturbed and the troubled. He is to be refuge- the asylum, if you will- of all those whom the world in its foolishness, will call foolish. ********** Yes, Ciudad did seek peace—but he could not find it. First, he was to leave the only home he knew—the home the chief shepherd in Oropeza, Francisco, called the majoral. Francisco had hoped that John would eventually marry and settle down in Oropeza as an assistance. It was not to be. Was it the security of belonging to one place, to one person, that suddenly caused young Ciudad to leave all behind and enlist in the army? The little town of Oropeza, over the Portuguese border in Spain, couldn’t have been more peaceful. Too, the quiet occupation of shepherd should have radiated some of its tranquility to his restless mind. It didn’t! He would become soldier, and nearly lose his life. Much worst than that though, he nearly lost the practice of his faith, which had been to him his one deep source of inner peace. No, the army was not for him. Rather he would bring his newly recovered faith to the service of those Christians held captive by the moors. He would go to Africa. He was young and strong and personable. He would do great good. But, Africa brought him no peace. On the contrary! Young strong though he was, overwork and misguided zeal brought him to such a state of nervous exhaustion that the priest advised him to return to Spain. “Seek peace ad follow after it.” But for John Ciudad there was no peace – yet. ********** The Spirit led Jesus into the desert to be tempted by the devil. In solitude and suffering the merciful redeemer inaugurated his public life. The same spirit now led John Ciudad to Granada—that city which was to be for him successively the desert of his humiliation, the object of his merciful love, and finally the witness of his glory. Saint John of Avila came to Granada to preach. And among his listeners one day was a man whose hunger and thirst for God had never ceased increasing from the time he had regained his weakened faith – Ciudad. So stirred was he by Master Avila’s words that he cried out like a man who had lost his reason. All through the streets he ran –tearing his clothes, crying, seemingly unable to control himself. Was it exceptional sorrow for his sins? Or was it another manifestation of emotional disturbance? For our part, we must say it was both. He was taken to the Royal Hospital and placed with the mentally ill. But see how wonderful are the mysterious ways of God! Here, in this sad place, the man who had lived all his life without home or family, fund in these poor ones a new family, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters. He was like a man born again he would live for them! ********** Released from the Royal Hospital, John Ciudad rented a house for the care of the poor and the sick. “More madness”, the people said. But “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom”. (1 Cor. 1:25) So, for thirteen years, until his death, he labored with all his heart for the relief of all forms of human suffering, the sick, the outcasts, the deformed and, above all, the mentally ill. No longer was he called John Ciudad, rather John of God. Scripture says that he who has charity is of God. In one of his few letters, John of God unwittingly gives us a glimpse into his merciful heart. He writes of entering a poor home one day, and of finding the whole household sick. He says, “I saw them so poor and ill- cared for that they broke my heart”. The vision of Jesus suffering was always before Him, suffering in His passion; suffering in His poor and afflicted members. Here was the principle of his whole spiritually. “There is no higher contemplation,” he said, “than the sacred passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ”. John of God knew. In the bitterness of his own personal sufferings, had he not been “nailed to the Cross with Christ” (Gal. 2:19) ********** One day, it is said; as John of God was praying, Mary appeared to him, taking the crown of thorns from the Crucifix, she placed it on his head. What an ideal symbol for a man whose life was characterized by sufferings of the mind—by personality difficulties which never seemed quite able to master. In spite of his limitations- we may almost say because of them- John of God attained an intimate and continuous union with God in Love. A union that was made complete by his precious death. Thus they found him one day, alone in his room, kneeling upright, Crucifix in hand – but his spirit had gone with God to that promised land of eternal rest. Having recognized the great holiness of his life, and the many miracles which were a proof of it, the church canonized him a saint – Saint John of God – and officially appointed him as a representative before the throne of God for the sick and the dying. The Church asks him to continue in heaven his work of merciful love for the afflicted on earth. And so we have a protector in heaven who understands us. One whose vigil over us will know no ending until the promise of the Spirit is fulfilled: “And God will wipe all tears from their eyes; there will be no more mourning or sadness. The world of the past has gone”. Rev. 21:4
Ø Universal Patron of the Sick and those who serve them Ø Father of the Poor Ø Apostle of God’s Mercy Ø Angel of the Hospitals
Prayer O Blessed Father John of God, full of love and compassion for the afflicted, obtain for us the grace ever to see Jesus Himself in the person of our neighbor that we may be found worthy to receive the eternal bliss promised to those who serve Christ in the person of the sick, the poor and the needy. Amen. Labels: saints |
