November 26
St. John Berchmans
Memorial
By Wendell J. Laurent
Today the church celebrates the Memorial of St. John Berchmans, SJ, patron of Jesuit scholastics and altar servers.
Devotion to St. John Berchmans is popular in southern Louisiana, my home state, because the miracle that led to his canonization occurred at the Academy of the Sacred Heart in the small town of Grand Coteau (which is in fact near the current Jesuit novitiate for the UCS Province). In 1866 an extremely ill novice of the Sacred Heart, Mary Wilson, prayed for the intercession of John Berchmans to help heal her. She described later how John Berchmans appeared to her and how she was immediately healed.
Berchmans, born in 1599 in Diest, Belgium, was the oldest of five children of a shoemaker. In 1615 Berchmans enrolled in the newly opened Jesuit college in Mechelen. He soon thereafter wrote to his parents expressing his interest in joining the Society of Jesus. His father hurried to Mechelen in an attempt to dissuade his son from doing so. Despite his father’s entreaties, which included threats of the loss of financial support, Berchmans entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1616.
His outgoing and affable personality endeared him to others and he became a model of prayerful holiness in the vein of St. Aloysius Gonzaga. He was also influenced by the example of the Jesuit English martyrs which inspired him to request to become an army chaplain upon ordination, hoping to be martyred on the battlefield.
His dream of martyrdom was never realized, however. Berchmans died of cholera at ag 22 while doing studies in Rome. His lack of martyrdom notwithstanding, it has been said that it was his realistic appreciation for the value of ordinary things that constituted his holiness.
John Berchmans, along with Stanislaus Kostka and Aloysius Gonzaga, are often referred to collectively as the Jesuit "boy saints" because of their relative young age at death. Their patronage has extended to such diverse groups as students, altar servers, novices, Jesuit scholastics, AIDS patients and caregivers, and the blind.
Saint John Berchmans, pray for us!
Mr. Wendell J. Laurent serves as the Vocation Team Coordinator for the USA East Jesuit Province.
The Jesuit Lectionary is a project of the Office of Ignatian Spirituality and the USA East Jesuit Province Vocations Office. For more information about becoming a Jesuit, visit BeaJesuit.org.