Sixteenth-century Portuguese who cared for the sick in Granada, Spain, and inspired the Brothers Hospitallers. Patron of hospitals and nurses.
Life
John of God was born in Portugal in 1495. As a boy he went to Spain and drifted through life as a shepherd, a soldier and for a time a bookseller. Around the age of forty, hearing St. John of Avila preach in Granada, he underwent a deep conversion, and his extreme displays of penance got him confined to a mental hospital.
Seeing the wretched treatment of the patients there, he opened a house for the sick and poor and cared for them with total devotion. Companions who shared his vision formed, after his death, the Brothers Hospitallers of St. John of God. He died in Granada in 1550, was canonized in 1690, and is patron of hospitals, nurses and the sick.
Spirituality
John of God's spirituality is serving Christ in the most abandoned. Through his own failures and wounds he came to understand the hearts of those who suffer, and he turned that experience into generous mercy. Though he had nothing, he begged in the streets and gave everything for the sick.
Reflection
After a late conversion, John of God gave his whole life to the sick. It is never too late to be converted. Which sick neighbor could I visit or check on today?