John

ON BLESSED JOHN, HERMIT OF MASSACCIO, IN PICENUM.

Blessed John, hermit of Massaccio, in Picenum (B.)

By D. P.

[1] In the province of Picenum, in the neighborhood of the town called Massaccio (now Cupramontana), in a mountainous and solitary place, lived Blessed John, hermit, whose memory is celebrated on April 20. Of his life and origin little is known with certainty; yet ancient tradition, preserved in the place where he lived, and the records of nearby churches, attest to his great sanctity and the miracles wrought through his intercession both in life and after death.

[2] His hermit life It is said that he was born of honest parents, and from his youth withdrew to solitude, that he might more freely serve God. He built himself a small cell in a remote place, and there spent his days and nights in prayer, fasting, and contemplation. He wore rough clothing, ate scanty food, and slept little, passing the greater part of his nights in vigils. His fame of sanctity, though he sought to hide it, spread to the surrounding villages; and many came to him for counsel and consolation.

[3] Miracles at his hermitage By his prayers the sick were healed, the possessed were freed, the afflicted were comforted. Some who came out of curiosity went away edified; some who came to mock departed converted; some who came for bodily help received also spiritual aid. He was a model of penance and of humility, and left behind him the odor of the sweetest sanctity.

[4] His death When full of years and merits, he rendered his soul to God, and was buried in his little cell; where afterwards a chapel was built in his honor, and the faithful came from diverse places to venerate his relics. Many miracles have been wrought at his tomb, of which some are preserved in the records of the churches nearby. His memory is celebrated on April 20, and he is held in veneration in the whole region of Picenum as one of its protectors.

ON BLESSED JOHN, HERMIT OF MASSACCIO IN PICENUM.

IN THE YEAR 1399.

Blessed John, Hermit of Massaccio, in Picenum (B.)

By D. P.

[1] Among the towns of the diocese of Jesi, one that is not ignoble is reckoned which, about ten miles from the city toward the southwest, is called Massaccio, and once had an Abbey of the Camaldolese institute. To this, led for burial, John the Hermit of whom we have undertaken to treat would doubtless now be numbered among the Blessed of the same Order, as Blessed Torellus of the Vallombrosans, of whom on March 16, if the place had not long before been emptied of its former inhabitants, formerly buried in a Camaldolese Abbey and therefore John had fallen into oblivion among the Camaldolese. So it has happened that the Franciscans, dwelling there already more than 220 years, have with impunity numbered him among their Tertiaries; by their solemn custom, assigning to their Third Rule any professors of solitary life in these latest centuries, not bound to any certain order, because of the form of the hermit dress, not much differing from the Franciscan, he is numbered among the Tertiaries of Saint Francis which we neither wish to reprove nor can approve. Yet we abstain from the title by which Arthurus from the monastery has inserted Blessed John into his Martyrology; and we confess ourselves to owe greater thanks to Luke Wadding and his abbreviator Francis Harold, that they have striven to insert into their Annals some synopsis of his life, such as they could collect from the monuments of that place, either written or preserved in memory: from whom Wadding under the year 1399 thus speaks.

[2] "In this year or about, on April 22, at Massaccio, a castle of the March of Ancona, died John the hermit-dweller, a boy given to prayer follower of the third institute of Saint Francis."

Born among rustics of heretical parents, as a rose from thorns, he was kindly anticipated by divine grace, so that by his kinsmen he might be instructed in the Catholic faith, and from childhood might experience divine favors. He continually repeated the Lord's Prayer, and roused other little boys to frequent prayers. To divine things he was so devoted, that he would have speech only of these. God, about to manifest the purity of his soul and the virtue hidden under his tender breast, willed in a lack of water he draws forth a spring that when the fields were drying up with the summer heat, and shepherds and flocks were failing for lack of water, the boy John, drawing a circle on the ground and invoking the name of Jesus, should open for the thirsty a most abundant vein of water. For the greater confirmation of the miracle this fountain still flows, and is called by the common name, "Fountain of the goats of Blessed John."

[3] When grown older, leaving the guarding of flocks, he gave himself wholly to guarding and cultivating his soul; grown older he retires to a cave by the example of the most holy Patriarch Benedict he hid himself in a secret cave, his counsel being communicated to his mother alone, converted by his prayers. She through a rope, at the ringing of a bell, furnished bread, water, and raw herbs. He however consumed his whole time in sacred meditations, rigorous penances, and dire conflicts with the enemy. he is tempted by the demon The demon envied him so great a virtue, and devised everything to drive him from this kind of life. He beat his mind with strong temptations, cast before him dreadful specters, terrified him with threats, and sometimes added blows. But with the young man's mind unshaken, at last the demon, vanquished in so many contests, departed confused, and by a certain childish revenge threw a stone and broke the bell. So it frequently happens that the demon, not being able to do greater things, turns to lesser; and conquered in great things, shows himself a ridiculous contender in small. This damage, slight enough, the mother repaired, buying another bell; which when the enemy in similar manner shattered, John asked that his mother should buy a third from the price of her own labor; saying that but in vain perhaps therefore the two former were broken by the demon, because they were bought with badly acquired money. That this suspicion was not empty, both the mother's confession, and the little bell procured by the price of labor, whole to this day, have proved. It hangs in the refectory of the Friars Minor, as a constant memorial of this matter.

[4] He remained in this cave all the time his mother lived: but when she died, he increases the rigor of penance when there was no one to furnish bread, it was necessary to go around the houses. Drawn by the pious way of life of certain Religious, he took the habit of the third Order of Saint Francis: under which he devised wondrous modes of penance. Daily with the sacred Sacraments of Penance and of the Eucharist he refreshed his holy soul: with constant prayer and long fasting he exercised himself against the snares of the demon. With perpetual tears he implored for himself and for others the pardon of sins, until his body, worn by labors, from a grave and long-lasting infirmity at length fell asleep in the Lord. The bells ringing of their own accord announce his virtue when dead It pleased the Author of the virtues with which he shone to manifest his sanctity and announce his death, by the wondrous sound of the bells of the monastery or Abbey of Massaccio of the Camaldolese monks. All being stupefied at the hidden motion and sound, produced by no human power, they began to ask what this prodigy portended. To whom someone answered by chance, perhaps the hermit John had died: for he had not come out of the cave for some days. They went who should explore, and found him with bent knees, with hands joined before his breast in the manner of one praying, with erect body, with face raised to heaven, firmly stiff.

[5] These things having been spread among the people, all came together into the cave, to see and venerate the servant of God: miracles follow then in hymns and canticles they led the holy body, with what solemnity they could, to the monastery; where from the wondrous sound of the bells they judged he had wished to indicate the place of his burial. He began to be illustrious with innumerable miracles, and to present help to all the sick. For which cause the townsfolk appointed him their protector before God, the place is handed over to the Franciscans and venerate his feast with solemn rite. The Minors were translated by Martin V, and the translation was confirmed by Nicholas V in the year 1450. By which reason it came to pass that the foster-son of Blessed Francis came into the power of the followers of the holy Patriarch."

[6] Thus far Wadding, who spoke doubtfully about the year of his death, because in Marcus of Lisbon he had read the year 1393. But Wadding's abbreviator Harold, the day and year of death are more certainly known warned from Massaccio that there was no other memorial about the time of his death than for the year 1399, absolutely wrote him dead in that year; with a similar suggestion he placed the day as April 20, imputing to a typographical error the fact that in Wadding it stood as 22 for 20. Arturus could not decline the typesetter's error, which he could not have had suspect; and therefore he inscribed John in his Martyrology on April 22. The Most Eminent Anthony Cardinal Bicchius approved with his judgment the correction of Harold in both respects: whom we had asked with our customary trust to seek from Massaccio whatever documents there might be had there concerning Blessed John; from his own city of Osimo, over which he happily presides as Bishop, he sent thither a Patrician man: from whose report about the year and day of his death, according to the mind of the Massaccio people, he recognized and judged; the other things which he had brought collected, the Most Eminent one judging them little authentically proved, ordered us to stick with what Wadding and Harold had written about the Blessed.

[7] around the year 1537 the coffer was broken As to the past and present cult of the blessed man, the same Most Eminent one so writes in a letter, given from Osimo on the last day of December 1670: "I say from the reports, that truly the relics of Blessed John, after his death for 178 years in the church which is now of the Reformed of the Franciscan Observance, were exposed to public cult and veneration, within a marble coffer, namely until the year 1577: but then at the suggestion of a certain Friar, the coffer was privately and secretly broken, and the bones drawn out. Whence the Bishop of Jesi, under whose dominion the place is, took care to have the fragments which remained within the coffer removed and hidden, an occasion is given for abolishing the cult being doubtful about their truth and identity with those which previously enclosed there, by the tacit consent of the Church, had had cult and veneration. Now however neither in paintings nor in tablets is there any monument of memory."

The Bishop of Jesi at that time was Gabriel de Monte, great-nephew of Pope Julius III, promoted to that See in 1554, over which he presided for 43 years and some months: in whose time fell that solemn visitation of the Italian churches, of which we treated on March 13, concerning Blessed Eric, venerated at Perugia after death. Worthy was that rash license of the Friars to be so castigated; worthy were the people of Massaccio to be deprived of the patronage of him whose veneration they had allowed to fall into oblivion. formerly neglected For if the cult of this blessed hermit had been in green observance, the Bishop would not have been so severe in this part, and could easily have been moved to let all things be restored to their former state. But I do not think that either the Bishop or the Massaccio people were greatly solicitous for that restoration; since the care of the former and the devotion of the latter were drawn rather to another John the Minorite, of whom in the aforesaid place Wadding testifies on account of the cult of another Blessed John that "he lies in the same church under the altar of the most holy crucifix, illustrious in signs and miracles, and died in the year 1559, March 11": on which day however there is no memorial of him in Arthurus; but on the 2nd of the same month, when we placed his name among the omitted. Indeed, when these things were being printed, there had not yet come to our hands the collection of the chiefly authentic miracles, made in the year 1669, of which, made in his presence and in his monastery of Saint Lawrence, the Most Reverend Andreas Vallemarius the Camaldolese, then residing at Massaccio, is a witness present; whose transcript legitimately signed he sent to us: and we keep it for the supplement of March, about to await similarly what else meanwhile may occur and be written with equal trust.