Saint of the Day Online - St John Berchmans

Saint of the day online, Sunday, November 26, 2017

Saint Name: Saint John Berchmans
Place: Diest, Seventeen Provinces
Birth: 1599
Death:1621
Feast: November 26

Saint John Berchmans who was born on 13 March 1599 was a Jesuit scholastic and is a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. He is the patron saint of altar servers.

When he was age nine, his mother was stricken with a very long and a very serious illness. John would pass several hours each day by her bedside. He studied at the Gymnasium (grammar school) at Diest and worked as a servant in the household of Canon John Froymont at Malines in order to continue his studies. John also made pilgrimages to the Marian shrine of Scherpenheuvel, some 30 miles east of Brussels, but only a few miles from Diest.

Eldest son of a shoemaker, John was born at Diest, Brabant. He early wanted to be a priest, and when thirteen became a servant in the household of one of the Cathedral canons at Malines, John Froymont. In 1615, he entered the newly founded Jesuit College at Malines, and the following year became a Jesuit novice.

In 1615, the Jesuits opened a college at Malines (Mechelen) and John Berchmans was one of the first to enroll. Immediately upon entering, he enrolled in the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin. When John wrote his parents that he wished to join the Society of Jesus, his father hurried to Malines to dissuade him and sent him to the Franciscan convent in Malines. At the convent, a friar who was related to John, also attempted to change his mind. Finally as a last resort, John's father told him that he would end all financial support if he continued with his plan.

Nevertheless, on 24 September 1616, John Berchmans entered the Jesuit novitiate. He was affable, kind, and endowed with an outgoing personality that endeared him to everyone. He requested that after ordination as a priest he could become a chaplain in the army, hoping to be martyred on the battlefield.

On 25 September 1618, he made his first vows and went to Antwerp to begin studying of philosophy. After only a few weeks, he was sent to Rome, where he was to continue the same study. He set out on foot, with his belongings on his back, and on arrival was admitted to the Roman College to begin two years of study. He entered his third-year class in philosophy in the year 1621.

Later, in August 1621, the prefect of studies selected John Berchmans to participate in a discussion of philosophy at the Greek College, which at the time was administered by the Dominicans. John opened the discussion with great clarity and profoundness, but after returning to his own quarters, was seized with the Roman fever. His lungs became inflamed and his strength diminished rapidly. He succumbed to dysentery and fever on 13 August 1621, at the age of twenty-two years and five months. When he died, a large crowd gathered for several days to view his remains before burial in Sant'Ignazio Church, and to invoke his intercession. That same year, Phillip-Charles, Duke of Aarschot, sent a petition to Pope Gregory XV with a view to beginning the process leading to the beatification of John Berchmans.

He died there on August 13. Many miracles were attributed to him after his death, and he was canonized in 1888. He is the patron of altar boys. His feast day is November 26.

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