Saint of the day - August 13
John Berchmans personifies the ideal that ordinary deeds done extraordinarily will lead to great holiness. He died very young, only five years after entering the novitiate, but his great desire to be a priest inspired him to live a religious life to the fullest.
Berchmans was born on 13 March 1599, as the eldest son of a shoemaker, in the city of Diest, situated in what is now the Belgian province of Flemish Brabant. His parents were John Charles and Elizabeth Berchmans. When he was nine years, his mother was affected by a prolonged, serious illness and John would pass several hours each day by her bedside.
He used to live in the rectory of Notre Dame parish while he studied, and used to work as a servant in the household of Canon John Froymont at Mechelen, in order to continue his studies.
In 1615, Berchmans joined the Jesuit college at Mechelen, and on 24 September, 1616, he entered the Jesuit novitiate. He wanted to become a chaplain in the army, after ordination, hoping to be martyred on the battlefield. Fellow Jesuit Aloysius Gonzaga was his spiritual model.
The young Jesuit arrived in Rome on December 31, 1618, and joined the Roman College for studying Philosophy. Berchmans was known for his diligence and piety, and his stress on perfection, even in small things. His health suffered badly from the effort he had put into studying for his final exam. He contracted Roman fever, his lungs became inflamed and his strength diminished rapidly. Finally, 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 and to invoke his intercession.
After his death, Berchmans' heart was taken to his homeland in Belgium, where it was kept in a silver reliquary on a side altar in the church at Leuven (Louvain). Berchmans was declared Blessed in 1865, and canonized in 1888.
He was known for his devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and to Our Lady, to whom he composed a Chaplet in honour of her Immaculate Conception.
Other Saints of the Day
1. Saint Benilde Romancon
2. Saint Cassian of Imola
3. Saint Francis of Pesaro
4. Saint Maximus the Confessor
5. Saint Radegunde
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