Blessed John the Good of Mantua

The state of infirmity to which he saw himself reduced, depriving him by necessity of the use of all the pleasures he esteemed so highly, made him recognize the vanity of a life of the senses; he understood that this illness was a blow from God, punishing him for his infidelity and for the abuse he made of the good nature with which He had favored him, and he did not doubt that the evil He sent him was to prepare him for a great good; so that, without further delay, he renounced with a good heart all the pleasures and all the vanities of this world, and promised at the same time to God, by a very serious vow, that he would leave the world and retire into a cloister, if it pleased His divine goodness to restore him from this illness.

The holy young man recovered perfect health; and, grateful for the grace he had just received, he wished to fulfill, without delay, the promise he had made. To this end, he went to find the Bishop of Mantua, made him the depositary of his secret, revealed to him the holy ardor with which he felt his heart inflamed, made a general confession to him; and, finally, after having distributed all his goods to the poor, in accordance with the counsels of the Gospel, he left his own country and all his relatives, then he retired, with the consent of the same prelate we have just mentioned, to a hermitage quite near Cesena Césène Site of the saint's first eremitic retreat. , a city in Romagn Romagne Region of Italy where the saint's hermitage was located. a, Italy. He fortunately found in this place a very secluded cave in the wilderness, which was very suitable for his design, which was to distance himself entirely from the commerce of the world to attend in freedom to penance and prayer; he therefore shut himself up in this solitude and began there to expiate all the vices of his youth through fasts, vigils, bodily austerities, the exercise of vocal and mental prayer, and an infinity of other practices which seemed to partake more of cruelty than of the virtue of penance.

The courage and fidelity with which he persevered in this way of life astonished the powers of hell; the demon, in order to stop if he could such great progress in virtue, launched two particular attacks against him which our Saint courageously overcame. The first was regarding gluttony, or rather daintiness, representing to him the delicate morsels with which he had once sated himself, and the delicious feasts in which he had formerly taken part; the blessed John avoided this first trap by gathering a whole dish of wild bramble leaves, very bitter to the taste and even somewhat thorny, which he ate entirely raw for his meal without any seasoning, with a firm resolution to repeat this remedy if the temptation returned; but this means was so effective that the enemy did not tempt him again from that side.

He was nevertheless attacked in another way: the evil spirit representing to him with extremely vivid colors the image of a creature he had once admired, and exciting in him sparks of a dishonest fire which he made him feel among the thorns of his hairshirt and in the midst of the coldness of his abstinence; the holy Penitent, whose heart was with God, to overcome this assault, thrust with heroic courage very sharp reed points into the tips of his fingers, between the flesh and the nails; the pain he felt from this was so sharp and penetrating that he fell into a swoon and remained for the space of three days half-dead. This means, which common prudence would have condemned, was nevertheless so approved by God that He let him know he would be exempt for the rest of his days from similar temptations: he even received miraculously the perfect healing of all the wounds he had made on the tips of all the fingers of both his hands.

Although the servant of God worked thus to overcome, with incredible courage, the attacks of hell in the secret retreat of a deep forest, he was nevertheless, by God's permission, finally discovered and his distinguished merit recognized; this attracted disciples in such great numbers that he was obliged to build small cells and private oratories, and subsequently a church, with the consent of the Ordinary, in honor of the Blessed Virgin; and the matter reached such a point that, as the number of penitents increased day by day, the blessed John was compelled to build, in various places, several monasteries to receive all those who presented themselves. These pious hermits did not at first have a particular rule, and they were content to observe some regulations that the Blessed one gave them by word of mouth; but being finally resolved to conform himself and his religious to one of the ancient rules already established and received in the Church, he chose that of the Hermits of Saint Augustine: and so that the matter m ight be better received a Ermites de Saint-Augustin Religious order to which John belonged and whose rule he adopted. nd more authentic, he sent to ask for the approval of the sovereign Pontiff who was then Innocent III, who, being well informed of the meri Innocent III Pope who commissioned Pierre de Castelnau against the Albigensians. t and the holiness of the intentions of the venerable John, willingly granted him what he asked, allowing him and his disciples to live, to take vows, and to draw up constitutions and laws in accordance with the Rule of Saint Augustine.

This holy personage conducted this work with admirabl Règle de Saint-Augustin Cited for his definition of fraternal charity. e prudence; and, seeing the blessings that God gave to his Congregation, and that all his religious lived in perfect obedience, he found a way, through an effect of humility, to resign from the office of general that he held, and to give it to another, in order to live himself in a more hidden state, and to have more leisure to attend in freedom to the exercises of contemplation and mortification, which are the two principal articles of the life of solitaries. Indeed, when he had obtained to no longer be prior general, he began again to lead a more austere and regular way of life than that which he had held until then, and he supported no less effectively by his example alone the work he had begun than when he gave his exhortations and gave laws in writing and by word of mouth, while being general.

He relied so little on the mortifications and penances he had practiced until then in solitude that he bound himself again by vow to observe three Lents every year for the rest of his life. The first was the one to which the Church obliges the faithful before Easter: he observed it with such extreme rigor that on Ash Wednesday he would take only three ounces of bread, which he divided into small pieces, and each of these small pieces served as his meal for each day; then, when Holy Thursday arrived, he would multiply the remainder so abundantly that there was enough to provide a meal for a large number of religious whom he gathered at that time to celebrate the feast of Easter with them.

The second Lent he observed was from the octave of Easter until Pentecost: during this time, he used no other food than that which he could receive from the Holy Communion he took every morning; for, at other times, he was content to hear Holy Mass and to receive Communion on Sundays and feast days. He observed his third Lent immediately before the feast of Christmas, and then he took for his daily meal only three fava beans; during all the rest of the time, he fasted strictly on bread and water on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays of each week. He never ate meat, not even when ill, although it was permitted at that time.

If he was so rigorous in his diet, he was no less so in his clothing: it can be said that he wore clothes only so as not to appear naked; in his hermitage, he used only a simple tunic woven from straw, which, nevertheless, has since become an admirable instrument of healing for a great number of the sick who came to have it applied to them after his death: God making known thereby how pleas tunique tissée de paille The saint's austere garment that became an instrument of miraculous healings. ing the austerities of His Servant had been to Him. His history also says that he had three beds in his cell: one was made of tree trunks, very poorly fitted together and more suited to causing a body to suffer martyrdom than to serving as a place of rest; indeed, his intention was to use it only to cause himself great fatigue and extreme pain. The second of his beds was a pit that was deeper on one side than the other; he would descend at certain hours of the day into this kind of sepulcher and lie down in it, placing his head on the side that was deepest to suffer more, and he would not leave the posture he took there until he had devoutly recited the Lord's Prayer two hundred times; finally, his third bed was a simple board upon which he rested, having only a piece of wood for his pillow. It is thus that the spirit of penance led this great Servant of God to find ingenious ways to give no rest to his flesh and to continually bear the mortification of Jesus Christ in his body.

Although Blessed John the Good lived in perfect innocence and gave no foothold to his enemy, the devil, nevertheless, who could only bear with difficulty that he observed such great fidelity to his exercises and that he persevered as he did day and night in the practices of the highest contemplation, waged great battles against him: sometimes he appeared to him under horrible figures to frighten him and distract him in the sweet rest of his prayer, sometimes he waged open war on him by striking him harshly; sometimes he threatened to wage battles against him for the rest of his days; at other times, he stirred up the most atrocious calumnies against him to make him lose his reputation and diminish the confidence that the people had in him. This infernal monster attacked him most commonly when he was on the rough wooden bed of which we have spoken, and, unable to bear the voluntary pains that the Saint suffered while lying on it, he pulled him off one day after having previously tormented him well and threw him so roughly onto the floor of his room that he was gravely wounded. It would take us too long to give here the account of so many different battles; it would suffice to say that he always remained the victor over his enemy, whether by using the sign of the cross, or by making interior acts of perfect trust in God, or by continuing with incomparable fidelity the exercises of prayer and mortification which most displeased the enemy, or by exculpating himself with angelic tranquility and modesty before his bishop, from all the impostures and calumnies that were stirred up against his person: so that all the adversities that happened to him, both from the side of men and from the part of hell, served only to increase his patience and his victories, and to raise his distinguished merit before God and before the world.

We will not stop here to discover in detail the interior communications he received from heaven, we will only say that they were proportionate to the labors he suffered, and that, if the demons attacked him visibly under bodily forms, Jesus Christ, on the other hand, under whose orders he sustained his battles, also appeared to him often visibly in human form, to strengthen and console him in his labors. These graces and distinguished favors were communicated to him especially when he meditated on the mysteries of the passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. His exterior visions were always accompanied by a great abundance of interior consolations and extraordinary lights; it was in this sweet commerce that he learned future things that he could not know by natural knowledge: which made him predict several events by determining circumstances so particular that they caused admiration and great astonishment to all those who had knowledge of them. A sick man, being abandoned by all the doctors as destined to die, the Saint predicted, against all appearance, that he would soon return to perfect health: which happened, in fact, shortly after. He also declared that a certain religious would abandon his state and leave the religious habit, but, nevertheless, that he would recognize himself so well afterwards, that he would make a very happy end, and that great honors would even be rendered to his body after his passing: which happened as he had predicted.

He also drew from the holy exercise of contemplation the solution to an infinity of very thorny difficulties, the depth of which it would have been difficult to penetrate by human sciences. That is why, although he had never studied much and had only a slight tincture of human letters, he did not fail to resolve very clearly one of the most delicate questions of canon law, touching on marriage, in the presence of two famous and very experienced lawyers, who were extremely surprised to hear from the mouth of the Saint the explanation of their difficulty, and to see even that he cited to them the place in the law where the solution he gave them was found.

He performed truly miraculous things during the course of his life, which are as many convincing proofs of his innocence and the power that God had given him over creatures. A motive of pure charity toward a religious of the hermitage where he dwelt led him to perform an action that we must not omit here. A young brother, having resolved through temptation to return to the world and abandon his vocation, the Saint, having gone to wait for him at the place where he was to pass on his way out, took him by the hand and, leading him near a great fire, jumped into it in his presence, having bare feet; then, having walked for a long time on the burning coals without being harmed in any way, he said to this religious, whom he saw all surprised and as if ecstatic to be a witness to such a wonder: "My brother, the subject of your astonishment will cease if you understand that God grants so much grace and mercy to those who, having consecrated themselves to him, are faithful in persevering in their vocation, that water, fire, and all other creatures become submissive and helpful to them, losing their natural qualities or acquiring new ones in favor of these same servants of God." And, for a greater proof of what he was telling him, he immediately took from the fire a burning brand that he went to plant in the ground by the end that was burning, and, surprisingly, God, responding to the faith of his servant, the stick immediately turned green again and was found in a short time loaded with leaves and beautiful fruits very good to eat. Such great wonders opened the eyes of the religious who was about to leave; he deplored his cowardice, admired the power that God gave to his servants when they were faithful to him, and finally persevered in his first vocation and made a happy end in religion.

The great reputation he acquired, as much by the holiness of his life as by the number of prodigies he performed, drew so many visits from all sides that he resolved to retire to some unknown place to avoid vainglory and be less exposed to the praises of men. He therefore left his hermitage secretly one evening; but, by a disposition of divine Providence, after he had walked well all night, in the morning, believing himself to be very far away and out of reach of being caught by those he knew would pursue him, he found himself before the door of his cell, from which he had left the evening before: which soon made him conclude that God, who had thus regulated his steps, did not approve of his retreat nor that he should be far from that place, because he had to support his brothers there in the austerity of religious discipline by the strength of his example, and assist and favor with his good help those who would have recourse to him in their misfortunes and illnesses.

Scarcely had the holy hermit returned to this place, when God made it even more clearly known that it was divine Wisdom that was keeping him there; as the parents of a young demoniac wanted to take him to the Blessed John the Good, so that he might deliver him from the tyranny of this evil host, the demon would never resolve to go where they wished to take the sick man, saying that he knew well where they wanted to lead him, but that he would not go; the parents, nevertheless, having found the means to transport their son into the church of the place where the good hermit was, no sooner had he arrived there than the demon, without even waiting for the presence of the Saint who was being requested, immediately left the body of the sick man, to the great astonishment of the assembly, which could not sufficiently admire, on the one hand, the respect that the demon had for the holy religious, and, on the other hand, the great power that the servant of God had over the infernal powers.

We are obliged to pass over in silence several other beautiful actions so as not to be too long in this summary, and to return to the end that happily crowned the fidelity and labors of this great servant of Jesus Christ. Having therefore worthily filled the measure of good works that God expected of him to share his glory with him, he was warned by an angel to go to Mantua, which Mantoue Italian diocese where the cult of Ozanne was authorized. was the place of his birth, where God wanted his body to be buried and receive great honors. The Saint obeyed, and, as the power and faculty of performing miracles followed him everywhere, he still found himself obliged to perform, before his passing, a wonder that we must not omit. A woman having lost her only son in whom she placed all her confidence and all her consolation, spoke of nothing less than dying, and said that she absolutely wanted to be buried with her son who had passed away, not being able to survive such a loss; her friends persuaded her to have recourse to the Blessed John the Good to whom nothing was difficult, to pray to him to restore life to her son; she accepted the advice, and, full of confidence in God and esteem for the holy Hermit, she carried the body of her dead child to his cell, conjuring him by all sorts of prayers to obtain for her from God the consolation of receiving alive this son who was so dear to her. The Saint, whose charity had no bounds, began to pray, and, when he had spent three whole days near the deceased to obtain for him from heaven the life of which he had been deprived, God, finally answering the prayers of the Saint, restored life to the dead man, to the great astonishment of the whole city of Mantua, which was a witness to this wonder; but finally, he who had just obtained life so easily for a stranger, breathing nothing so much as to die to go and enjoy in freedom the presence of his God, accepted with great joy to leave this world; so that after having warned his brothers of the day of his death, he exhorted them to observe their vows well and never to move away from the practices of mortification and penance: "Do not seek any other joy here below," he told them, "than that which a good conscience receives from the good works that one does; never forget to imitate the examples of our Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ who is our common Master; it will be by this means that all things will succeed for you in this life, and that you will merit glory in the other."

A little before his death, a religious took the liberty of asking him what his body would become after his death; he answered him that men would treat it with great respect, and that God would show many wonders around it for several years; that one would, nevertheless, forget all these things for a time, but that it would please divine Providence to put it in such a great reputation that it would be respected by the whole earth: which the event has shown to be true. Finally, the last moment of his departure from this world having arrived, a troop of angels surrounded his bed, and a voice was heard inviting him to come and enjoy the eternal delights in the company of his brothers who had preceded him in glory, and, at the same moment, he rendered his beautiful soul to God. This was on October 23 of the year of grace 1222, being ninety-eight years old.

His body was buried with many honors, as he had predicted, and, eighteen months after having been put in the ground, it was found entirely intact when it was raised to give it a burial even more honorable than the first.

He is depicted holding a lily in one hand and a skull in the other, to mark the struggles he had to endure against impurity after his conversion, and the thought of death which was the object of his assiduous meditations.

We have composed this life based on the memoirs found in the History of Illustrious Men of the Order of the Hermits of Saint Augustine.