At Jerez in the region of Andalusia in Spain, Saint John Grande, religious of the Order of Saint John of God, who was renowned for his charity toward captives, the abandoned, and those rejected by all; while tending the victims of a plague he was himself infected and died.
Lifespan: 1546–1600
Beatified: 13 November 1853 by Pope Pius IX
Canonized: 2 June 1996 by Pope John Paul II, Saint Peter’s Square, Rome
Memoria liturgica: 3 June
In his hospital life, the Brothers had to drag him out of the chapel to bring him to his cell and bring the night prayer to a close.
John Grande was born in Carmona, near Seville, Spain, on 6 March 1546, the son of Cristóbal Grande and Isabella Román, a deeply Christian family. He was baptized by the parish priest Andrés Muñoz. His father, an artisan by trade, died when John was eleven years old.
He received a thorough Christian formation, first within the family circle, then, from the age of seven to twelve, as a choir boy in his parish church.
He perfected his human and professional formation by learning the art of weaving in Seville. At seventeen he returned to Carmona and took up the cloth trade. Before long, however, his profession provoked a deep spiritual crisis in him.
He left his family and withdrew to the hermitage of Santa Olalla in Marchena, a village near Carmona, where for a year he led an eremitic life of prayer in search of his true vocation. He stripped off his secular clothes, put on a rough habit, and resolved to give himself entirely to God. He renounced marriage and adopted the name “John the Sinner” as his sobriquet.
At the same time he took care of an elderly couple who had been left entirely to their own devices: he brought them into his lodging and provided for their needs by begging alms. In this way he came to understand that his new vocation was the service of the poor and needy.
At barely nineteen years of age, John the Sinner moved to the city of Jerez de la Frontera, near Cádiz, where he began a new life by caring for the prisoners of the Royal Prison and for sick convalescents and incurables left to fend for themselves. To help them he begged alms in the streets of the city.
At the same time he frequented the church of the Franciscan Fathers, where he gathered himself in prayer and sought counsel from one of the friars.
John the Sinner quickly won the admiration of the citizens of Jerez for his generous life devoted to charity.
In 1574 a serious epidemic broke out in Jerez. Shaken by the general passivity, John addressed a memorandum to the municipal authorities urging urgent relief measures for the growing number of sick persons abandoned in the streets, while he himself laboured to come to their aid. Strengthened by this experience, he finally decided to found his own hospital, which he gradually brought into being and expanded. He dedicated it to the Most Holy Virgin, calling it the Hospital of Our Lady of Candlemas.
John the Sinner’s very being and all his activity had one reason alone: God — to make God visible through service to the poor. In this endeavour he drew upon an intense life of faith and prayer.
Having learned that in Granada there existed an institution with aims very similar to his own, founded by John of God, he went there in 1574 and resolved to join it, following its rule and adopting in his own hospital the same manner of life professed there.
His project, his witness, and his exemplary commitment attracted other men who became his companions, and he formed them according to “the statutes of John of God.”
This enabled him to extend his work through the establishment of further foundations at Medina Sidonia, Arcos de la Frontera, Puerto de Santa María, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and Villamartín.
The care of the poorest sick of Jerez left much to be desired. At the same time, the number of small assistance centres in the city was growing out of all proportion. Faced with this situation, the authorities decided to consolidate the many small hospitals in order to achieve greater effectiveness in the health service. But the measure ran up against the interests of not a few people who were attached to the small centres — not so much out of love for the sick as for the personal benefits they derived from them. The plan accordingly met with sharp criticism, resistance, and opposition.
The measure also affected John the Sinner’s hospital. Like the other parties concerned, he submitted a memorandum to the authorities explaining how the sick were cared for in his hospital.
When the moment came to decide to whom to entrust so delicate a mission, the Archbishop of Seville, Cardinal Rodrigo de Castro, chose John the Sinner, recognising in him the most suitable and capable person for that purpose on account of his spirit, his vocation, and his hospital experience. John Grande faced the consolidation with courage and love, showing great sensitivity, competence, strength of character, and virtue in the face of the many disagreements that arose.
An information note drafted at the time records that the care provided in his hospital was carried out “with diligence, care, and great charity, performing a very useful work and rendering good service to God our Lord, for he and his brothers in habit are virtuous men who profess the charity of caring for the poor sick.”
Sustained by an intense interior life, John the Sinner gave himself body and soul to assisting, healing, and serving the poor and the sick, devoting particular attention to the most serious and urgent cases: prisoners, convalescent and incurable patients, prostitutes, sick soldiers discharged from the army, abandoned children, and others. Viewed as a whole, he practised all the works of mercy.
In John Grande we encounter a man who knew how to “do good well,” proceeding from the goodness of his own being. A man of few words, devoted to practical effectiveness, merciful servant of the “Gospel of Life,” Good Samaritan, skilled organiser of hospitals and of the health service, a critical conscience in the face of injustice, abuse, and deficiency — John Grande was, in the end, a true prophet and apostle of healthcare.
At the age of fifty-four, John Grande, fully occupied with running his hospital and guiding his community, found himself confronting a terrible epidemic of plague that at that time struck Jerez. He laboured with all his strength for those who had been infected, until at last he himself contracted the disease, and died of it on 3 June 1600.