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John
was born in Portugal in the late fifteenth century. He was a
mercenary as a young man, and fought against the French in Spain
and the Turks in Hungary. He then traveled to North Africa and
sold slaves in Morocco before returning to Spain to become an
Andalusian shepherd. He eventually settled in Gibraltar, and
opened a book and icon shop to assuage his guilt from his former
years as a soldier of fortune. On St. Sebastian's Day, when
he was forty, he heard a sermon given by John of Avila and snapped.
He pounded his fist against his chest, began screaming and crying
and was rushed from the church and thrown into an asylum. He
was visited in his torturous sixteenth century mental ward by
the preacher who had so moved him. John of Avila concluded that
our saint's insanity was merely a form of penance, and encouraged
him to do charitable work in the community. The priest's visit
calmed him considerably, surprising his doctors, and he was
released. He re-entered society with a barrage of good deeds,
and eventually opened a hospital for the destitute. He spent
the next fifteen years as a pillar in his community and died
from heart trouble while saving a drowning man. Although he
never intended to found an order, six years after his death
he was named founder of the Brothers Hospitallers. He's invoked
against alcoholism because of a Dublin hospital for recovering
alcoholics named after him. John is also the patron of booksellers,
printers, hospitals, nurses, the sick and dying; and he’s
invoked against heart disease. His feast day is March 8. |
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St.
John of God
Patron St. of
Alcoholics |
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