He was descended of one of the most ancient and noble families of
Sienna; and being chosen first magistrate of that commonwealth,
acquitted himself of all the duties of that charge with integrity
and honor, and to the great satisfaction of his countrymen; but he
was passionate, and his heart was strongly wedded to the world,
and buried under the weight and hurry of its business, vanity, and
ambition, so that he scarce seemed able to find leisure to breathe,
or to think of eternity. One day, after being taken up the whole
morning in deciding causes in his court, he came home, much fatigued,
and not finding dinner ready, flew into a violent passion. His wife
put a book of the Saints’ Lives into his hands; but he threw it on
the ground. The next moment, being ashamed of his passion, he took it
up again, and sitting down to read, fell on the life of St. Mary of
Egypt. He read it with so much pleasure that he thought no more of
his dinner; and insensibly found his heart pierced with compunction
and remorse for his past sins and unthinking conduct, and entirely
weaned from the world.
From that moment he resolved to begin a new life; and, to expiate
his offences, he embraced the most austere practices of penance.
Resigning his public employs, he consecrated the greatest part of his
estates to alms-deeds; and being sensible that the first sacrifice
which God requires of a sinner is that of a contrite and humble
heart, without which no other can be acceptable to him, he spent
his time chiefly in prayers and tears. He sold his rich clothes
and furniture, giving the money to the poor, that they might be
intercessors in his behalf at the throne of mercy; he lay on two
boards, watching great part of the night in prayer, and his house
seemed converted into a hospital, so great was the number of the poor
and sick that he caused to be brought thither, and attended. The
whole country was astonished at so great a change, and so exemplary
a penance. Francis Vincent joined him in this manner of life. They
both ran the same course, and with equal paces. One day seeing a
leper lying at the door of the great church, covered with blotches
and ulcers, the saint carried him on his back through the public
market-place; attending him both as his servant and physician,
tenderly kissing his running sores one after another, till he had
perfectly overcome the abhorrence which nature inspires in such
actions, and continued his care of this patient till he was perfectly
cured.
St. John had one son and one daughter. The former God called to
himself by death, and the latter consecrated herself to his divine
service in a nunnery. St. John had before this, with his wife’s
consent, made a vow of chastity; and after their children were
thus disposed of, he sold his estate, and gave one-third of it to
a hospital, and the other two-thirds to different churches and the
poor. Having thus reduced himself to a state of poverty like that of
the apostles, he gave himself up to serve the poor in the hospitals,
and to the exercises of devotion and the most rigorous penance.
Several others, moved by his example, became his faithful imitators
and companions. They were solicitous to exhort the sick and poor to
the sincere dispositions of repentance, and to fervor in the divine
service; and the charity and disinterestedness with which they
ministered to them corporal relief and comfort, gave great force to
their zealous instructions. Out of their ardent love of our Redeemer,
whom they considered and served in his afflicted members, they had
his holy name so often, and with so great devotion and respect in
their mouths, that the people gave them the name of Jesuats. That
adorable name is repeated fifteen hundred times in the few letters
which St. John wrote. The number of his disciples being increased to
about seventy, he formed them into a religious Order, under the rule
of St. Austin, and took St. Jerom for their patron.[360] He addressed
himself to pope Urban V. at Viterbo, who approved and confirmed his
institute in 1367, and granted to it most ample privileges. Such was
the fervor of the first disciples of our saint, that almost all their
names have been placed among the blessed. The holy founder fell sick
soon after the approbation of his Order; and, having received the
last sacraments, commending his soul into the hands of his Creator
through the death of Christ, and in union with his recommendation of
his divine soul to his Father on the cross, he happily expired on the
31st of July, in the year 1367, the twelfth after his conversion,
only thirty-seven days after his Order had been confirmed by Pope
Urban V. See F. Cuper, the Bollandist, Julij, t. 7, p. 333, and
Helyot, Hist. des Ord. Rel. t. 3, p. 410.