ST. JOHN was born of very pious and noble parents, at Faucon, on the
borders of Provence, June the 24th, 1169, and was baptized John, in
honor of St. John the Baptist. His mother dedicated him to God by a vow
from his infancy. His father, Euphemius, sent him to Aix, where he
learned grammar, fencing, riding, and other exercises fit for a young
nobleman. But his chief attention was to advance in virtue. He gave the
poor a considerable part of the money his parents sent him for his own
use: he visited the hospital every Friday, assisting the poor sick,
dressing and cleansing their sores, and affording them all the comfort
in his power.
Being returned home, he begged his father's leave to continue the pious
exercises he had begun, and retired to a little hermitage not far from
Faucon, with the view of living at a distance from the world, and united
to God alone by mortification and prayer. But finding his solitude
interrupted by the frequent visits of his friends, he desired his
father's consent to go to Paris to study divinity, which he easily
obtained. He went through these more sublime studies with extraordinary
success, and proceeded doctor of divinity with uncommon applause, though
his modesty gave him a reluctancy in that honor. He was soon after
ordained priest, and said his first mass in the bishop of Paris's
chapel, at which the bishop himself, Maurice de Sully, the abbots of St.
Victor and of St. Genevieve. and the rector of the {380} university,
assisted; admiring the graces of heaven in him, which appeared in his
extraordinary devotion on this occasion, as well as at his ordination.
On the day he said his first mass, by a particular inspiration from God,
he came to a resolution of devoting himself to the occupation of
ransoming Christian slaves from the captivity they groaned under among
the infidels: considering it as one of the highest acts of charity with
respect both to their souls and bodies. But before he entered upon so
important a work, he thought it needful to spend some time in
retirement, prayer, and mortification. And having heard of a holy
hermit, St. Felix Valois, living in a great wood near Gandelu, in the
diocese of Meux, he repaired to him and begged he would admit him into
his solitude, and instruct him in the practice of perfection. Felix soon
discovered him to be no novice, and would not treat him as a disciple,
but as a companion. It is incredible what progress these two holy
solitaries made in the paths of virtue, by perpetual prayer,
contemplation, fasting, and watching.
One day, sitting together on the bank of a spring, John disclosed to
Felix the design he had conceived on the day on which he said his first
mass, to succor the Christians under the Mahometan slavery, and spoke so
movingly upon the subject that Felix was convinced that the design was
from God, and offered him his joint concurrence to carry it into
execution. They took some time to recommend it to God by prayer and
fasting, and then set out for Rome in the midst of a severe winter,
towards the end of the year 1197, to obtain the pope's benediction. They
found Innocent III. promoted to the chair of St. Peter, who being
already informed of their sanctity and charitable design by letters of
recommendation from the bishop of Paris, his holiness received them as
two angels from heaven; lodged them in his own palace, and gave them
many long private audiences. After which he assembled the cardinals and
some bishops in the palace of St. John Lateran, and asked their advice.
After their deliberations he ordered a fast and particular prayers to
know the will of heaven. At length, being convinced that these two holy
men were led by the spirit of God, and that great advantages would
accrue to the church from such an institute, he consented to their
erecting a new religious order, and declared St. John the first general
minister. The bishop of Paris, and the abbot of St. Victor, were ordered
to draw up their rules, which the pope approved by a bull, in 1198. He
ordered the religious to wear a white habit, with a red and blue cross
on the breast, and to take the name of the order of the Holy Trinity. He
confirmed it some time after, adding new privileges by a second bull,
dated in 1209.
The two founders having obtained the pope's blessing and certain indults
or privileges, returned to France, and presented themselves to the king,
Philip Augustus, who authorized the establishment of their Order in his
kingdom, and favored it with his liberalities. Gaucher III., lord of
Chatillon, gave them land whereon to build a convent. Their number
increasing, the same lord, seconded by the king, gave them Cerfroid, the
place in which St. John and St. Felix concerted the first plan of their
institute. It is situated in Brie, on the confines of Valois. This house
of Cerfroid, or De Cervo frigido, is the chief of the order. The two
saints founded many other convents in France, and sent several of their
religious to accompany the counts of Flanders and Blois, and other
lords, to the holy war. Pope Innocent III. wrote to recommend these
religious to Miramolin, king of Morocco; and St. John sent thither two
of his religions in 1201, who redeemed one hundred and eighty-six
Christian slaves the first voyage. The year following, St. John went
himself to Tunis, where he purchased the liberty of one hundred and ten
more. He returned into Provence, and there received great charities,
which he carried into Spain, and redeemed many in captivity {381} under
the Moors. On his return he collected large alms among the Christians
towards this charitable undertaking. His example produced a second order
of Mercy, instituted by St. Peter Nolasco, in 1235.
St. John made a second voyage to Tunis in 1210, in which he suffered
much from the infidels, enraged at his zeal and success in exhorting the
poor slaves to patience and constancy in their faith. As he was
returning with one hundred and twenty slaves he had ransomed, the
barbarians took away the helm from his vessel, and tore all its sails,
that they might perish in the sea. The saint, full of confidence in God,
begged him to be their pilot, and hung up his companions' cloaks for
sails, and, with a crucifix in his hands, kneeling on the deck, singing
psalms, after a prosperous voyage, they all landed safe at Ostia, in
Italy. Felix, by this time, had greatly propagated his order in France,
and obtained for it a convent in Paris, in a place where stood before a
chapel of St. Mathurin, whence these religious in France are called
Mathurins.
St. John lived two years more in Rome, which he employed in exhorting
all to penance with great energy and fruit. He died on the 21st of
December, in 1213, aged sixty-one. He was buried in his church of St.
Thomas, where his monument yet remains, though his body has been
translated into Spain. Pope Honorius III. confirmed the rule of this
order a second time. By the first rule, they were not permitted to buy
any thing for their sustenance except bread, pulse, herbs, oil, eggs,
milk, cheese, and fruit; never flesh nor fish: however, they might eat
flesh on the principal festivals, on condition it was given them. They
were not, in travelling, to ride on any beasts but asses.[1]
* * * * *
St. Chrysostom[2] elegantly and pathetically extols the charity of the
widow of Sarepta, whom neither poverty nor children, nor hunger, nor
fear of death, withheld from affording relief to the prophet Elias, and
he exhorts every one to meditate on her words, and keep her example
present to his mind. "How hard or insensible soever we are," says he,
"they will make a deep impression upon us, and we shall not be able to
refuse relief to the poor, when we have before our eyes the generous
charity of this widow. It is true, you will tell me, that if you meet
with a prophet in want, you could not refuse doing him all the good
offices in your power. But what ought you not to do for Jesus Christ,
who is the master of the prophets? He takes whatsoever you do to the
poor as done to himself." When we consider the zeal and joy with which
the saints sacrificed themselves for their neighbors, how must we blush
at, and condemn our insensibility at the spiritual and the corporal
calamities of others! The saints regarded affronts, labors, and pains,
as nothing for the service of others in Christ: we cannot bear the least
word or roughness of temper.
Footnotes:
1. A mitigation of this rule was approved by pope Clement IV. in 1267,
which allows them to use horses, and to buy fish, flesh, and all
other necessaries: on which mitigations see Historia prolixior
Priorum Grandimont, published by Martenne, Ampliff. Collectio, t. 6,
p. 138. This order is possessed of about two hundred and fifty
monasteries, divided into thirteen provinces, in France, Spain,
Italy, and Portugal. That formerly in England had forty-three
houses; that in Scotland nine, and that in Ireland fifty-two. The
general of the order is chosen by a general chapter, which is always
held at Cerfroid. Each house is governed by a superior who is called
minister. Those in the provinces of Champagne, Normandy, and Picardy
(which last includes Flanders) are perpetual but to Italy and Spain,
triennial. Their rule is that of the canons regular of St. Austin.
Their principal exercises are to sing the divine office at the
canonical hours, praising and glorifying the adorable Trinity, as
angel of the earth; and to gather and carry alms in Barbary for the
redemption of slaves, to which work one third of the revenues of
each house is applied. A reformation was made in this order in the
years 1573 and 1576, which, by degrees, has been introduced into the
greater part of the convents, and into that of Cerfroid itself.
These never eat meat except on Sundays, sing matins at midnight, and
wear no linen. The reformation of the barefooted Trinitarians, still
much more severe, was set on foot in Spain, in 1594, by John Baptist
of the Conception, who suffered many persecutions in the
undertaking, and died in 1613, in great reputation for sanctity and
miracles, the examination of which has been commenced in order to
his beatification.
2. Hom. de Eila et Vidua Sarept. pp. 33, 338, ed. Montf.
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