St. John of God

John was born in Portugal in 1495 and spent much of his early life in Spain. He worked as a shepherd before becoming a soldier in the service of Charles V. Butler describes military life as a period in which he neglected his religious duties. When he returned to work near Seville, he was about forty and increasingly troubled by the direction his life had taken.

His first attempts at a new life involved travel and hard work. At Gibraltar he met a Portuguese family being sent into exile at Ceuta in North Africa. He accompanied them and earned money by labouring on public works when illness and poverty left them in need. After returning to Spain, he sold religious books and pictures. By 1538 he had established a shop in Granada.

A sermon by John of Avila brought his repentance into the open. His distress and public behaviour were so extreme that people mocked and attacked him, and he was confined in a hospital as someone believed to have lost his reason. John of Avila visited and guided him towards a steadier way of serving God. The lasting change appeared in the care John began to give other people.

After leaving the hospital, he made a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Guadalupe and began selling firewood to support people in need. He then rented a house in Granada for sick people who lacked care. He attended patients himself and searched the streets for others who needed shelter. The work was demanding and practical: finding food, keeping the house in order, and helping people who could not reach it unaided.

Support grew as neighbours saw the care he provided. The archbishop of Granada contributed money and protection, and other benefactors helped supply the house. A bishop gave John the name by which he became known, John of God, and a distinctive habit. Companions joined him, enabling the work to continue beyond what one man could do. The religious order later known as the Brothers Hospitallers took shape from this service; its formal rules developed after his death.

John also assisted poor people in their homes, sought work for those able to earn a living, and helped people whose circumstances exposed them to exploitation. His generosity did not remove the need for careful administration. Butler describes him examining inventories, accounts, and the arrangements for hospital life. Even when ill, he remained concerned about the people depending on the house and the means of providing for them.

During a flood he tried to rescue a person in danger of drowning. Butler associates the exhaustion of that effort with his final illness. John initially continued working, but the archbishop required him to accept care in the home of a benefactor, Anne Ossorio. Before leaving the hospital, he entrusted its direction to Antony Martin and urged his companions to remain obedient and charitable. The man who had carried others now depended on their help.

John died at Granada on March 8, 1550. The archbishop had promised to provide for the poor and settle his debts, and the city honoured him at his burial. Pope Alexander VIII canonized him in 1690. His companions carried forward a vocation rooted in daily attention to patients, prayer, and the patient organization of help. His life shows how a troubled return to God grew into a lasting work of mercy.