Saint John Berchmans

Yet the life of John Berchmans points to a completely different road. He worked no visible miracles in his lifetime, never set foot in a distant mission, and never held any important position in the Church.

He went through the daily duties of a young Jesuit student: studying, sweeping, praying the Rosary, smiling at his friends. It was his complete faithfulness in every small thing that made his brief twenty-two years shine among the saints.

From early childhood, John carried a heavy load at home: his gentle mother was stricken with a paralyzing illness and lay bedridden for many years. Young John went faithfully to the village school and also became his father’s right hand. He sat by his mother’s bed, washing her and feeding her spoonful by spoonful, looked after the younger children, and did odd jobs in his father’s shoe workshop.

The family was so poor that his father once thought of taking John out of school early to learn a trade and earn money for the family. But the boy’s longing to give himself to God as a priest touched the local clergy. They found ways to help: he worked in a priest’s household in the city of Mechelen and tutored the children of well-off families there, in exchange for the chance to go on studying.

John grew up not pampered and protected, but shaped by poverty and self-reliance. He was never ashamed of being a poor shoemaker’s son; to him, hard work, honesty and love for his parents were what made a life beautiful.

When he told his family, his father was fiercely against it. He had hoped that his son, as a diocesan priest, would have a steady parish income to help the family, which was drowning in debt. He could not accept his son joining a poor religious order and giving up any chance of supporting them. He even traveled all the way to the school, trying both fatherly affection and harsh reproaches to change his son’s mind.

Moved by a firmness so full of love, his father wiped away his tears and gave his blessing. On September 24, 1616, John Berchmans entered the Jesuit novitiate in Mechelen.

Yet his road to holiness involved no extraordinary bodily penances. He understood that God was not asking him to do things beyond his strength, only to keep every small rule of the order faithfully and with love. He once said words that are still quoted:

“My greatest penance is common life.”

John always carried three priceless “treasures” with him, which he called the pillars of his religious life:

• a small crucifix reminding him of the boundless self-giving love of Jesus;
• the book of the Jesuit Rule, which he always treasured and carried out down to the smallest detail;
• and the rosary, symbol of his complete filial devotion to Mary.

He said:

“With these three, I can live a holy life and die in peace anywhere on earth!”

For him, obedience was not a grudging burden but the joy of doing God’s will through his superiors. He gladly swept the stairs, washed dishes in the kitchen and wiped the tables. Whatever he was doing, his face wore a bright, peaceful smile, as if he were waiting on Christ Himself and the Apostles.

The two young Jesuits walked more than a thousand kilometers, over the snow-covered Alps. In Rome he studied philosophy and theology tirelessly and excelled in the academic disputations.

Yet among that elite company John stayed completely humble. He volunteered to teach catechism to poor children in the streets, visited the sick in hospitals and lovingly looked after the old and sick religious in the house.

His open nature, tireless kindness and good cheer led everyone at the college to call him fondly “the angel of the community.” He had a gift for turning recreation, at table or between classes, into moments of holy joy and brotherly warmth.

On August 7, 1621, he was taken to the house infirmary. He grew worse each day, and the doctors shook their heads, helpless. John was not afraid of death at all. His face still shone with a pure peace.

As his fellow students knelt around his bed weeping, John took his crucifix, the book of the Rule and his rosary and pressed them to his chest. He whispered to his brothers:

“These are my three dearest treasures; with them I am glad to die!”

When news of his death spread, all the professors and students of the Roman College and great crowds came to pay their respects. They did not come to pray for a soul in purgatory, but to touch their handkerchiefs and rosaries to the body of a young saint who had lived every moment of his life to the full. His body was later buried in the church of Saint Ignatius in Campo Marzio, in the heart of Rome, while his heart, according to the custom of the time, was taken to be kept in the Jesuit church in Leuven, in his native Flanders.

Together with Saint Aloysius Gonzaga and Saint Stanislaus Kostka, Saint John Berchmans is one of the three great young saints of the Society of Jesus. He is the patron of altar servers, students and Catholic youth.