JOHN
450
JOHN
John excelled in gentleness and piety. At the age of
ten he was taken to Genoa by friends for his education.
There he received news of the death of his father.
After three years he was called to Rome by a relative,
Lorenzo de Rossi, who was canon at St. Mary in C'os-
mechn. He pursued his studies at the Collegium
Romanum under the direction of the Jesuits, and soon
became a model by his talents, application to study,
and virtue. As a member of the Sodality of the
Blessed Virgin and of the Ristretto of the Twelve
Apostles established at the college, he led the members
in the meetings and pious exercises, in visits to the sick
in the hospitals and in other works of mercy, and
merited even then the name of apostle. At the age of
sixteen he entered the clerical state. Owing to indis-
creet practices of mortification he contracted spells of
epilepsy, notwithstanding which he made his course
of scholastic philosophy and theology, in the college
of the Dominicans, and, with dispensation, was or-
dained priest on 8 March, 1721. Having reached the
desired goal, he bound himself by vow to accept no
ecclesiastical benefice unless commanded by obedience.
He fulfilled the duties of the sacred ministry by de-
voting liimself to the labourers, herds, and teamsters
of the Campagna, preaching to them early in the
morning, or late in the evening, at the old Forimi Ro-
manum (Campo Vaccino), and by visiting, instructing,
and assisting the poor at the hospital of St. Galla. In
1731 he established near St. Galla another hospital as
a home of refuge for the unfortunates who wander the
city by night (" Rom. Brev.", tr. Bute, Summer, 573).
In 1735 he became titular canon at St. Mary in Cos-
medin, and, on the death of Lorenzo two years later,
otedience forced him to accept the canonry. The
house belonging to it, however, he would not use, but
employed the rent for good purposes.
I'or a number of years John was afraid, on account of his sickness, to enter the confessional, and it was his custom to send to other priests the sinners whom he had brought to repentance by his instructions and sermons. In 1738 a dangerous sickness befell him, and to regain his health he went to Civiti Castellana, a day's journey from Rome. The bishop of the place induced him to hear confessions, and after reviewing his moral theology he received the unusual faculty of hearing confessions in any of the churches of Rome. He showed extraordinary zeal in the exercise of this privilege, and spent many hours every day in hearing the confessions of the illiterate and the poor whom he sought in the hospitals and in their homes. He preached to such five and six times a day in churches, chapels, convents, hospitals, barracks, and prison cells, so that he became the apostle of the abandoned, a second Philip Neri, a hunter of souls. In 1763, worn out by such labours and continued Hi-health, his strength began to ebb away, and after several attacks of paralysis he died at his quarters in Trinitii de' Pelle- grini. He was buried in that church under a marble slab at the altar of the Blessed Virgin. God honoured his servant by miracles, and only seventeen years after his death the process of beatification was begun, but the troubled state of Europe during the succeeding years prevented progress in the cause until it was resumed by Pius IX, who on 13 May, 1860, solemnly pronounced his beatification. As new signs still dis- tinguished him, Leo XIII, on 8 December, 1881, en- rolled him among the saints.
Herbert, St. John B. de Rossi (New York, 1906); Roman
Breviary; Seebuck, Herrlichkeit der kalh. Kirche (Innsbruck,
1900), 1; Bellesheim, Derhl.Joh. B. de Rossi (Mainz, 1882);
Cormier (Rome, 1901); Theol.prakt.Quarlal-Schrift, XXV,752.
Francis Mershman.
John Beche, Blessed. See Beche, John.
John Berchmans, Saint, b. at Diest in Brabant, 13 March, 1.599; d. at Rome, 13 August, 1621. His parents watched with the greatest solicitude over the formation of his character. He was naturally kind.
gentle, and affectionate towards them, a favourite
with his playmates, brave and open, attractive in
manner, and with a bright, joyful disposition. Yet he
was also, by natural disposition, impetuous and fickle.
Still, when John was but seven years of age, M. Em-
merick, his parish priest, already remarked with pleas-
ure that the Lord would work wonders in the soul of
the cliild. Many are the details that reveal him to us
as he was in the days that preceded his entrance into
the Society of Jesus. He was but nine years old when
his mother was stricken with a long and serious illness.
John would pass several hours each day by her bed-
side, and console her with his affectionate though se-
rious, words. Later, when he lived with some other
boys at M. Emmerick's house, he would undertake
more than his share of the domestic work, selecting by
preference the more difficult occupations. If he was
loved by his comrades, he repaid their affection by his
kindness, without, however, deviating from the dic-
tates of his conscience. It was noticed even that he
availed himself discreetly of his influence over them to
correct their negligences and to restrain their frivolous
conversation. Eager to learn, and naturally endowed
with a bright intellect and a retentive memory, he en-
hanced the effect of these gifts by devoting to study
whatever time he could legitimately take from his or-
dinary recreation.
What, however, distinguished him most from his companions was his piety. When he was hardly seven years old, he was accustomed to rise early and serve two or'three Masses with the greatest fervour. He attended religious instructions and listened to Sunday sermons ^vith the deepest recollection, and made pilgrimages to the sanctuary of Montaigu, a few miles from Diest, reciting the rosary as he went, or absorbed in medita- tion. As soon as he entered the Jesuit college at Mech- lin, he was enrolled in the Sodality of the Blessed Vir- gin, and made a resolution to recite her Office daily. He would, moreover, ask the director of the sodality every month to prescribe for him some special acts of devotion to Mary. On Fridays, at nightfall, he would go out barefooted and make the Stations of the Cross in the town. Such fervent, filial piety won for him the grace of a religious vocation. "Towards the end of his rhetoric course, he felt a distinct call to the Society of Jesus. His family was decidedly opposed to this, but his cahn determination overcame all obstacles, and on 24 September, 1616, he was received into the novitiate at Mechlin. After two years passed in Mech- lin he made his simple vows, and was sent to Antwerp to begin the study of philosophy. Remaining there only a few weeks, he set out for Rome, where he was to continue the same study. After journeying three hun- dred leagues on foot, carrying a wallet on his back, he arrived at the Roman College on 31 December, 1(518. According to the usual course, he studied for two years and passed on to the third year class in philosophy in the year 1621. One day early in August of that same year he was selected liy the jirelVct of studies to take part in a philoso])liic;ii disputation at the Greek Col- lege, at that time under the charge of the Dominicans. He opened the discussion with great perspicuity and erudition, but, on returning to his own college, he was seized with a violent fever of which he died, on 13 August, at the age of twenty-two years and five months.
During the second part of his life, John offered the type of the saint who performs ordinary actions with extraordinary perfection. In his purity, obedience, and admirable charity he resembled many religious, but he surpassed them all by his intense love for the rules of his order. The constitutions of the Society of Jesus lead those who observe them exactly to the highest degree of sanctity, as has been declared by Pope Julius III and his successors. The attainment of that ideal was what John proposed to himself. " If I do not become a saint when I am young ", he used to
