John of God

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Image of St. John of God, oil painting by Pedro de Raxis

John of God , also known as John of God (Portuguese João Ciudad Duarte , born March 8, 1495 in Montemor-o-Novo , Portugal ; † March 8, 1550 in Granada , Spain ) was a Portuguese religious and the founder of the order of Merciful Brothers of St. John of God . He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church . He is the patron saint of hospitals, nurses, booksellers and printers as well as the city of Granada.

Creation of the Brothers of Mercy

After a troubled life, John, who was over 40 years old, heard the Spanish missionary John of Avila preach. He was converted from one day to the next and from that point on devoted himself exclusively to nursing the sick.

In Granada he set up a hospital that set the trend, especially in the care of the mentally ill. The order of the Brothers of Mercy, which lives according to the Augustine Rule , developed from the nursing staff, originally unintentionally . The community, which is still considered to be one of the most important male orders in the field of nursing, consists mainly of lay brothers who, in addition to the three vows of the evangelical councils, also take that of hospitality.

Saint John of God is depicted with a pomegranate as an iconographic saint attribute - he used this fruit in his hospital even back then to heal many diseases.

Life

Statue of Saint John of God in Vilar de Frades, Barcelos, Portugal

The adventurer

João Ciudad Duarte was probably born on March 8, 1495 in the small Portuguese town of Montemor-o-Novo, southeast of Lisbon . His father was probably a greengrocer.

For unknown reasons, Johannes left home when he was eight. The first biography reports that a clergyman took him with him. In any case, in the same year he lived in Oropesa Castle in Andalusia , around 300 kilometers from his home town. He initially had the task of bringing the shepherds the snack and soon became a shepherd himself. He was accepted into the house of an administrator, the Mayoral in Oropesa near Toledo , and stayed there with a brief interruption (1523 as a soldier) until 1532. It is possible that even then he was given the nickname de Dios ("from God"), which is common for foundlings .

In 1532 Johannes served as a soldier in the army of Charles V against the Turks. Johannes came to the gates of Vienna via Barcelona , Genoa , Lake Garda , Innsbruck and Linz . In 1533/34 he returned to Spain. In the same year Johannes went back to his hometown Montemor-o-Novo . He did not return to Oropesa, but went via Seville and Gibraltar to Ceuta . During the crossing he met a nobleman who had been banished from the Portuguese royal court with his wife and four daughters. Johannes hired himself to build the fortress and supported the family with his income.

In 1538 John went to Gibraltar. There he traded in spiritual books and images of saints. At the end of the year he opened a bookstore at Elvirator in Granada .

The one called by God

John of God with angels (painting by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo , around 1672)

On January 20, 1539, John heard the famous preacher John of Avila . Johannes was so impressed by this sermon that he gave away all his belongings. The supposedly madman was taken to the royal hospital, where he learned about the plight of the sick, especially the insane. After his discharge from the hospital, he went on a pilgrimage to Guadalupe and then began caring for the sick under the archway of the house of a converted Moorish family whom he had picked up on the street. This archway with the family's motto “Das Herz befehle” is still preserved. Soon Johannes was able to realize his ideas of nursing in a rented house. The different patients were separated from one another according to their illnesses and each patient was given his own bed. John also had the sick treated by a doctor. Johannes often picked up sick people on the street and carried them on his back to his hospital.

In autumn 1539 he built his first hospital in Lucenagasse. The payment of the rent was secured by patrons who have supported him from the start. He provided for the sick and poor himself by collecting leftovers and money for the sick in the evenings with the cry “Do good, brothers!”. Although Johannes was initially laughed at as a fool, his work soon found recognition and support.

The Saint

His passionate, selfless commitment to the poorest in society impressed the people. In November or December the Bishop of Tuy, the chairman of the royal chancellery in Granada, called him "John of God" at the first meeting, because in his opinion a person could only do such a work if he was called by God to do it. The bishop presented John with a robe made of coarse bleached linen that he was to wear from then on.

John also took care of the outcasts. He tried to buy out prostitutes and marry them off or find work for them. In the pimp milieu he also found his first helpers, Antón Martin, the avenger of a murdered man, and Pedro Velasco, the murderer, whom he was able to reconcile. More and more rich and noble people supported his work during this time.

The second hospital in a former Carmelite convent on the Gomeles slope at the main entrance to the Alhambra was founded in 1547. The ground floor was used as a hostel for pilgrims and the homeless, while the first floor had 100 beds. Abandoned children were also accepted there. John traveled through Andalusia to find patrons. In 1548 John went to the royal court in Valladolid to see Philip II in order to develop sources of money.

When the Royal Hospital burned in Granada on July 3, 1549 , John saved many sick people from the flames. He threw everything useful out of the windows until he was trapped in the flames on the upper floors and escaped via the roof. When the Genil River flooded in the winter of 1549/50, Johannes also went to the bank to fish firewood from the floods. He tried in vain to save a boy from the water and caught a bad cold in the process. Before his death, he arranged everything in the hospital and made sure that all debts were paid.

Basilica of St. John of God in Granada

Adoration

John died in the house of his friends, the Pisa family, on March 8, 1550, half an hour before the morning bell. He was found kneeling with the cross in his hand. He was buried in the family crypt of the Pisa family in the Viktoriakloster. On September 21, 1630, Pope Urban VIII beatified John of God. In 1644 his relics were transferred to the hospital church of the Brothers of Mercy, later the Basilica of San Juan de Dios. On October 16, 1690, Blessed John was canonized by Pope Alexander VIII .

In 1759 the relics of St. John transferred to the Basilica of San Juan de Dios in Granada, which was consecrated to him and was built in 1734–1759. Further relics can be found in the Archivo Museo San Juan de Dios.

Pope Leo XIII. declared the St. John of God on May 27, 1886 patron saint of hospitals and sick people, Pius XI. added on August 28, 1930 the patronage over the nurses and their associations. 1940 Pius XII. the St. John the patron saint of the city of Granada. He is also venerated as the patron saint of booksellers, book printers and paper millers. His festival is celebrated on March 8th .

Representations

  • Mural - Johannes von Gott in habit gives an emaciated person a drinking vessel - 5–6 m high, in reddish brown with ocher yellow, signed "TH A , 1955" on the rear north wall of the convent building of the Merciful Brothers in Graz, Annenstraße 4. It was originally located on the narrow western front of a hospital building that also contained an operating theater and a drying floor. In the course of the renovation of the hospital in 2003–2009, before the building was demolished around 1955, the relief was removed in three parts and placed on the much older brick wall.
  • Bronze sculpture in the water basin - Johannes von Gott helps a young person to get out of the water - in the entrance building of the hospital at Marschallgasse 12 in Graz.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.barmherzige-brueder.at/pages/graz400/geschichte/entwicklungenseit1950 The developments since 1950, 2015, accessed January 6, 2016.

literature

Web links

Commons : John of God  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME John of God
ALTERNATIVE NAMES João Ciudad Duarte; João de Deus; Juan de Dios
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Founder of the Order of the Brothers of Mercy
DATE OF BIRTH March 8, 1495
PLACE OF BIRTH Montemor-o-Novo
DATE OF DEATH March 8, 1550
Place of death Granada