St. John Berchman
Feastday: November 26
Patron of Altar Servers
Birth: 1599
Death: 1621
Early life
John Berchmans was born 13 March 1599, in the city of Diest situated in what is now the Belgian province of Flemish Brabant, the son of a shoemaker. His parents were John Charles and Elizabeth Berchmans. He was the oldest of five children and at baptism was named John in honor of St. John the Baptist. He grew up in an atmosphere of political turmoil caused by a religious war between the Catholic and Protestant parts of the Low Countries. When he was age nine, his mother was stricken with a very long and a very serious illness. John would pass several hours each day by her bedside. He studied at the Gymnasium (grammar school) at Diest and worked as a servant in the household of Canon John Froymont at Malines in order to continue his studies. John also made pilgrimages to the Marian shrine of Scherpenheuvel, some 30 miles east of Brussels, but only a few miles from Diest.
Call to the Society of Jesus
In 1615, the Jesuits opened a college at Malines (Mechelen) and John Berchmans was one of the first to enroll. Immediately upon entering, he enrolled in the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin. When John wrote his parents that he wished to join the Society of Jesus, his father hurried to Malines to dissuade him and sent him to the Franciscan convent in Malines. At the convent, a friar who was related to John, also attempted to change his mind. Finally as a last resort, John's father told him that he would end all financial support if he continued with his plan.
Nevertheless, on 24 September 1616, John Berchmans entered the Jesuit novitiate. He was affable, kind, and endowed with an outgoing personality that endeared him to everyone. He requested that after ordination as a priest he could become a chaplain in the army, hoping to be martyred on the battlefield.
On 25 September 1618, he made his first vows and went to Antwerp to begin studying of philosophy. After only a few weeks, he was sent to Rome, where he was to continue the same study. He set out on foot, with his belongings on his back, and after on arrival was admitted to the Roman College to begin two years of study. He entered his third-year class in philosophy in the year 1621.
His grave at the Sant'Ignazio
Later, in August 1621, the prefect of studies selected John Berchmans to participate in a discussion of philosophy at the Greek College, which at the time was administered by the Dominicans. John opened the discussion with great clarity and profoundness, but after returning to his own quarters, was seized with the Roman fever. His lungs became inflamed and his strength diminished rapidly. 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 before burial in Sant'Ignazio Church, and to invoke his intercession. That same year, Phillip-Charles, Duke of Aarschot, sent a petition to Pope Gregory XV with a view to beginning the process leading to the beatification of John Berchmans.
Spirituality
St. John Berchmans took as his spiritual model his fellow Jesuit St. Aloysius of Gonzaga and he was also influenced by the example of the English Jesuit martyrs. It was his realistic appreciation for the value of ordinary things, a characteristic of the Flemish mystical tradition, that constituted his holiness. He had a special devotion to God's Mother; and to him is owed the Little Rosary of the Immaculate Conception.
Veneration
At the time of John's death, his heart was returned to his beloved homeland in Belgium where it is kept in a silver reliquary on a side altar in the church at Leuven (Louvain}. John Berchmans was declared Blessed in 1865, and canonized in 1888. Statues frequently depict him with hands clasped, holding his crucifix, his book of rules, and his rosary.
The feast day of St. John Berchmans has never been inscribed in the General Roman Calendar but prior to the liturgical reforms of St. John XXIII there was a Mass set for him among the section of Masses for Various Places (Missae pro aliquibus locis) of the Roman Missal which foresaw that it would be celebrated in different places on either 13 August or 26 November. The Saint is currently inscribed in the 2004 official edition of the Catholic Church's Martyrologium Romanum (p. 451) on 13 August, the date of his dies natalis (heavenly birthday).
Author - Catholic Online
http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=454
