At Lima in Peru, Saint John Macías, religious of the Order of Preachers, who for a long time carried out the humblest duties, diligently cared for the poor and the sick, and assiduously prayed the Rosary for the souls of the dead.
Lifespan: 1585–1645
Beatified: 22 October 1837 by Pope Gregory XVI
Canonized: 28 September 1975 by Pope Paul VI, Vatican Basilica
Memoria liturgica: 16 September
“A marvellous and attractive figure, a figure for our own time, a luminous example for us and for our society.”
Pope Paul VI
He was born on 2 March 1585 at Ribera de Fresno (Badajoz), in the Spanish region of Extremadura near the southern border with Portugal. From that silent landscape, open to boundless horizons, where man falls under the spell of the Creator’s unspoilt work, the young John surely drew a characteristic element of his personality: the capacity to live with his soul absorbed in God while carrying out the tasks demanded by daily life.
From a Dominican father who testified at the canonical process of 1644, we learn that “between the ages of six and seven, his parents sent him to tend herds of pigs and sheep.” Thus early on Juanito began a solitary life, marked by the need to earn his bread by carrying out his work responsibly — all the more so since within a short time he was left an orphan by both parents and was taken in, along with a little sister, into a relative’s household.
From that time on there was a particular presence at his side: his patron Saint John the Evangelist, who appeared to him as a boy of his own age, consoled him for the death of his parents, and promised to be his constant guide. Little by little he instructed him in the spiritual life, and helped him too in the tending of the flock so that he could go to church to pray — or simply finish his Rosary hidden behind a rock. Above all he strengthened in the young shepherd boy the deep inspiration to follow Christ, to bear witness to his faith, to become a missionary who would win souls by journeying far from his homeland to wherever God would reveal the place appointed by his Providence. For this reason, around the age of fifteen, John set out without knowing at all what his destination would be, but advancing step by step, event by event — a true pilgrim in faith and for faith — with the single desire of bearing witness to God’s love by saving souls. Leaving his village, he entered the service of various herdsmen, moving through different localities of Extremadura and Andalusia, until he reached Seville. In that city he found himself in a house of ill repute, and on that occasion his “little saint” appeared visibly once again to draw him out of danger.
At last, when the herdsman from Extremadura was now thirty years old, it became clear to him that God was calling him to sanctify himself beyond the Atlantic — to “go to the Indies,” to that New World where so many Spaniards were seeking riches, power, fame, and adventure, while far too few fervent missionaries were dedicating themselves to spreading his Kingdom. He made preparations to embark and set sail with a cattle merchant who had engaged him knowing his proven skill in caring for animals: it was certainly no easy matter to tend beasts during the ocean crossing and see to their needs!
He travelled as an ordinary emigrant, yet in his heart lived the expectation of a pilgrim of God, eager to bring God’s holy will to fulfilment. He disembarked at Cartagena, on the northern coast of present-day Colombia, and after four and a half months of travel on foot along the Andean cordillera, he entered the city of Lima. He found work with a large cattle merchant and remained in his service for some years, awaiting a sign that would indicate God’s designs for him. He continued to be protected and guided by his friend and companion John the Evangelist, who, as one witness at the beatification process attested, “not once but many times came to his aid in his want of necessities, and watched over the livestock in the guise of a young cowherd — so that in more than two and a half years not a single animal was ever lost; in fact their number increased!” It was again at the suggestion of his holy patron that John Macías asked to be received as a lay brother — that is, a cooperator brother — in the Dominican convent of Saint Mary Magdalene. It was January 1622, and that Spanish postulant was now thirty-seven years old; yet he brought with him the secret of particular mystical graces and, above all, was convinced that he had reached the “land of his conquest of souls” to which he would devote the rest of his life.
He spent the year of Novitiate in the company of Brother Paul of Charity, the porter, and through his holy example began a life of prayer for six or seven hours, by day and by night, along with the practice of penance and charity toward the poor. He learned that his natural taciturnity as a herdsman from Extremadura was an excellent aid for practising holy silence and for fusing action and contemplation, as the holy Founder of the Friars Preachers had indicated — into whose Religious Family he entered definitively with the Profession of Vows on 23 January 1623.
Before long he was entrusted with the gatehouse, where he exercised himself in loving God and neighbour until his death, vying with his friend Martin de Porres, a cooperator brother in the convent of the Holy Rosary, to lead the greatest number of souls to God through his own humble sacrifice — and not without certain prodigious interventions from Heaven. In Lima the number of the poor — among them Indians, Black people, orphans, the disabled, the unemployed — was continually growing, and so Brother John had to organise himself to give all those who knocked at the convent gate not only a bowl of hot soup but also other necessities according to their requests.
He obtained permission to go seeking alms in the city, to knock on the doors of those who possessed more in order to assist those who turned to him, helped always by his complete trust in divine Providence, capable of removing every obstacle. He was given a donkey to transport the goods he gathered, and the good beast learned to manage on its own: Brother John would load two large baskets on its packsaddle and give it the necessary directions, and it would make its way to the appointed places where people filled the baskets with provisions, and then return to the convent, biting and kicking any petty thieves who dared to touch the alms of the poor. At the appointed hour our porter distributed the hot soup: he would kneel down, grasp the large ladle, and fill the bowls of the poor — each one of them another Jesus Christ for him. And there was always enough for everyone, despite the scarcity of food relative to the throng of beggars. Many of the poor, moreover, were reached directly at home by the small food baskets sent by the “brother almoner.”
Many people in Lima and in other cities of the realm became benefactors of the porter of Saint Mary Magdalene, providing him with large sums of money for the dowries of indigent girls, great quantities of cloth for various purposes, and merchandise and foodstuffs of every kind. But the charity of the humble lay brother did not stop at material needs: he was a truly evangelical man who taught the doctrine of salvation to all he encountered. He was learned and apostolic, deeply perceptive in divine mysteries and heavenly things, able to correct, exhort, and set souls on the path of spiritual healing. This manifold work of good had its source in unceasing prayer, in his most tender devotion to Our Lady — whom he implored and thanked while reciting and meditating on the mysteries of the Holy Rosary — and in the humble and unshakeable certainty that the life he was living was the way God’s goodness had willed for him to be a missionary and conqueror of souls. Every day he extended his charity also to the souls in Purgatory, offering supplications to hasten their entry into Heaven.
A lay brother in a convent of strict regular observance, Brother John found in harsh and uninterrupted penance the sure means of obtaining from the Lord all the help that lay beyond his human powers. He practised the common discipline — that is, the scourging of the shoulders — together with the other friars, but also the voluntary kind at night; he wore cruel hairshirts; he endured in silence the open wounds in his flesh; he accepted humiliations and the reproofs of the Prior, who intended to test his virtue; he observed abstinences and fasts with the utmost rigour; he slept little, and almost always on the steps of an altar, devoting the greater part of the night to prayer. He suffered from the attacks of the demon, who struck and maltreated him, leaving visible bruises even on his face. The source of all his works of love was the Holy Mass, at which he could receive the Body of Christ in Holy Communion — even if not every day. He did everything in his power to serve, always kneeling, at least four or five Masses each morning; and for the feast of Corpus Christi he prepared with every care at the gatehouse the altar upon which the monstrance would rest during the city’s procession.
When in 1639 Brother Martin de Porres died, our saint must have felt that the hour of his own definitive emigration from earth to the Heavenly Homeland was not far off — all the more so since he had already been at death’s door following a most painful surgical operation. Yet six more years remained to him, during which supernatural interventions intensified, both for the benefit of his neighbour and for his own consolation — among them a vision of the Mother of God who offered him the Child Jesus to take into his arms. Brother John Macías died on 16 September 1645, of practically the same illness that had brought about the death of the holy Patriarch Dominic. To the confessor who urged him to reveal something of his life, he declared that he too died a virgin by the grace of God, and gave the explanations that were asked of him, especially concerning his relations with the Apostle, his patron.
He was buried first in the common tomb beneath the Chapter House; later his remains were transferred to the chapel built at the gatehouse, where the people could come without disturbing the regular life of the friars.
He was beatified by Pope Gregory XVI in 1837 and canonized in the Holy Year 1975 by Pope Paul VI.