Nov 26 John Berchmans b. 1599 d. 1621 bl 1865 c. 1888

John and Thommy

Good morning
I love you


[BC v. Miami, a woman doing the play by play on espn. An experiment? A very very bad idea. Even when her call is perfect; in the phrases of the football announcers everywhere, her voice is still female, and, duh, football is a guy thing, please, thank you very much. Who wants to hear a woman doing the announcing. It’s bad enough that they’re part of the sideline ‘color’ commentary. Puleeeeese!]



St. John Berchmans, S.J
3/13/1599 – 8/13/1621 bl 1865 c. 1888
Patron saint of altar boys.

We have Aloysius Gonzaga – known if only via the basketball team – and Stanislaus Kostka, the patron saint of my novitiate. And then the third young Jesuit saint, John Berchmans. I can’t tell you why he became known to me only after our saint of the day routine. I’m sure we celebrated him while we were novices; at least his feast day and the reading of his bio at dinner. How could we not have. His bio, his name, did not stick with me – learning aurally is not a strength of mine!

Twenty two years old when he died. Not much time to create biographical material, never mind elicit a biography from some one. John Berchmans was a Jesuit, thus we have plenty of original source material and bios galore, especially for such a saintly and miracle making young man. 22. I was 22 in 1971; already passed through the novitiate [like crap thru a goose?] and into my last undergrad year at BAMA [BS 1972]. You have 22 to look forward to…. Or not, we don’t know when our bell will be rung.

Diest. Brabant. Belgium. Not so far from Brussels and Louvain. Check the map. Learn a touch of geography. And then maybe tune into early seventeenth century – what was going on in our European world around 1600? It was a fulcrum year. How did the zeitgeist effect John Berchmans?

John Berchmanns was the oldest of five children. Oldest. John and I know a bit about the responsibilities of being the oldest [older] – how well we’ve carried that mantle so far; well, not so far as Mickey’s homeruns, fersure. Not only the duties but also the burdens of breaking in our parents [I digress not here….] We have the grace to play the cards we are dealt – for each tipping point in our lives, we have the opportunity to become better and closer to God or not. Those moments in life that are looked upon as contributed to a person’s success or saintliness could just as well become the point at which the person stepped away from God into a worser life. Each has its inertia. And, each single moment, every opportunity creates a new, 100% opportunity to move closer to God, family, church, community…. Self. I admit it, I have very few notes in my songs… and fewer lyrics.

John’s childhood bio describes him as a favorite with his peers, brave, open, attractive in manner as well as physique – a bright, joyful disposition. The all American, brilliant boy – well, Belgian. When his mother took ill, John Berchmans was nine. He spent hours each day with her, consoling her, sharing long and serious talks with her. John began serving Mass when he was seven – getting up early enough to serve two or three Masses in the morning. [I, like you, started serving Mass when I was ten. And served if not daily, more than once a week – we had lots of altar boys who wanted to serve Mass every day; especially when it helped us have the status of missing class every now and then. Such a pious practice on my part has not, yet, projected me into a saintly life. But it’s a foundational experience that I tap into regularly, including my continuing to serve at Mass or to attend Mass more than the weekly Sundays. All that helps. I wonder how bad I’d be without that much in my life? Kind of like the data of the effects of psychiatric inpatient treatment. Sure, the average patient isn’t much if any better six, twelve, twenty four months later; but the no treatment control groups are doing much more poorly. If it were relevant, and I suppose personally if not scientifically it is, then it would be good to see those who are doing better than those who are not and check the influence of the treatment/altar boy experiences….]
In addition to the service and education at the Canon’s home, John Berchmans attended religious instruction [kind of like a Catholic school student going to CCD on Sunday; or being part of the Teen Life Program]. We are told that John Berchmans, from his youngest years, paid close attention to the sermons at Mass – i.e., he remembered them, talked about them, assimilated them into his life. Would that we could say the same, not only with the sermons but also with the readings…. Of course, I suppose I should also acknowledge John Berchmans dedication to Mary and his recitation of the Rosary. We too? (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08450a.htm)


John Berchmans’ mother died when John was eleven. The stories readily available do not give us the details not only of her death but also the preamble to that experience for John. By the time his mother died, she had given their family five children – four younger sibs for the eleven year old John Berchmans and his father to take care of. That John Berchmans wanted to enter the seminary just could not be in the cards for this family whose income came from a shoemaker’s work. Until his mother’s illness combined with financial difficulties of the father had helped drain the family of its resources, the father found an opportunity for John Berchmans to become a servant in a Canon’s [of Diest] home, covering lots of bases – enhanced family income, one less mouth to feed at home, and education in preparation for the priesthood for John; although this also split up the family… not terribly unlike how grandpa’s childhood family was scattered from mother to grandmother to aunts – to make sure all got taken care of, each contributed to the sustenance of the family, and each survived, somehow, with family. When his mother died, John would have left his priestly training and taken on a trade to help support the family.
[There you have a question that you were not confronted with. I was not confronted with. There was a time, I’m guessing it was about 1959, when my family hit a financial rock in the road. I know it was then that my mother went back to work for a while. I know that I was out of catholic school for three years. Whatever it was, it was a family situation handled by the parents, by the spouses, together. I am sorry that you did not have a family in which marriage and family was first for both of your parents – it takes only one vote to dismantle a marriage; it takes two to create and maintain one – neither of which did you ever have. I am sorry.]

Were it not for his aunts, two nuns, who persuaded their chaplain to give John work as well as room and board John Berchmans would have become a holy shoemaker….

John Berchmans was brilliant – recognizably so from earliest childhood. Until very recently, I was proud of [I’d’ve said appreciative of] being smarter than the average bear. [I was; you are.] and being smarter than the average bear is a marvelous gift. There’s a huge gap between those blessings and being brilliant [130 IQ is smarter than the average bear but 160 is a quantum leap different and then there is brilliant in the 190s]. Still, our duty to maximize our gifts betters ourselves and makes for the 10,000 return on the talents given to us…. In addition to being a brilliant student, John Berchmans was a terrific actor. [See, he does have much in common with you. :)]
Not only was John Berchmans brilliant he also was pious – he had the discipline of faith as well as intelligence; the dedication to do what was necessary, what was demanded of his gifts to optimize them in the service of God, family, church, community, self. John asked his superiors [this alone is an important admonition for our modi vivandi – ask, especially as our superiors] …. John asked, and get this, this is the key, ‘what is the most perfect way?’ – it did not matter the what. what is the perfect way to do X? yes, perfect. Seek to be perfect even as the Father is perfect. What is the perfect thing to say? To do? To feel? To think? It is the pursuit of perfection that is at the heart of humility: the guidepost along the Way.

In 1615, John Berchmans was one of the first to enter the Jesuit College at Malines. Not only did he excel in his studies, this young man (16 y.o.) immersed himself in the Society of the Blessed Virgin. [I joined the Newman Center at BAMA; became a Knight of Columbus…. Would that I sustained any of this regularly. And I wonder how bad I would be were it not for those and other groups along the way…?] John Berchmans asks the sodality director to prescribe monthly acts of devotion to Mary. [Again, ask the leader, director, superior! First the humility of asking. Then the discernment of asking the right person.] He also prayed Mary’s Office daily. On Fridays, all Fridays, he would make the stations of the cross.

In 1616, John Berchmans became a Jesuit novice. He was 17 years old. Academically recognized as way ahead of his peers. More importantly, I suggest, was that his piety was seen by all - winning his entrance into the Society of Jesus as well as impressing his peers.
This turn of events displeased his sponsors. His father, his aunts, the canon of Diest, the priests [and their parishes] who took him in…. They had invested in him – they expected him to become a priest, even canon or bishop, and thus repay them tenfold and beyond with his service and his success – of course a successful canon was also financially secure with resources to take care of a father in his old age, subsidize the religious order of his aunts, and enrich the parishes and coffers of his mentors. John Berchmans gave them his answer – they are thus giving to God the boy that God had given to them. [That doesn’t pay the rent though….] [Not long after his mother’s death, John’s father became a priest – a lucrative profession for a respectable, holy, out of work shoemaker. Eventually, John Berchmans’ two brothers became priests.]
Like Therese of Lisieux, John Berchmans sought to be [and was we are told] perfect in the little things. “If I do not become a saint when I am young, I shall never become one.” [Not theologically sound but maybe he had a premonition? Maybe he knew he would die young?]
We have many stories about John Berchmans’ progress through his short Jesuit life – that’s the way Jesuits are. I wonder what’s in my records there?!. John Berchmans taught catechism in the area around Malines during his novitiate years. I got to teach catechism at the Berkshire Farm for Boys. We went over as ‘big brother’ types on Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings. A bit of hanging out, some playing pool, and then for the Catholics there was a lesson on Wednesdays and CCD on Sunday mornings as well as Mass then. I wonder what impact we Jesuit novices had; I had? Maybe not even a drop in those boys’ hurricane racked sea of life. This brilliant young man, with all the acting talents [maybe a John Bosco type?], was liked and listened to than the ordinary sermons. The children would hardly let him go at the end of his assigned time with them; they would clamor back with him to the novitiate where he distributed holy cards, medals, and rosaries [we too gave these away, to Catholics and nonCatholics alike.].

In 1619, John Berchmans was selected to go to Rome to study – an acknowledgement that the Jesuit fathers saw something special in him. He was sent to the big house, the hq, as well as the center of our church. From Belgium to Rome was a ten week walk. …. Lots of time to be perfect in the little things. He did not disappoint his superiors in either his religious or academic development.
Before heading out, John Berchmans learned that his father had just died. In November 1968, I was told about Jimmy’s death via a message given to me by a novice to go see Fr Shanassey. He told me that my father had just called. He gave me the news. He gave me a bit of time to recover from the feeloughts that elicited tears and anger and sorrow. He told me how the Jesuits would let me go to the wake and funeral and stay a day with my family and then return to the novitiate. He then told me I had permission to call home, my parents were waiting to speak to me. I am on the edge of tears with this memory….
John performed ordinary actions with extraordinary perfection. Extraordinary because the rest of us, equally capable and blessed choose not to – some do not seek to [i.e., choose to refuse the invitation to seek perfection]. John Berchmans had an intense love for the rules of the Society of Jesus.; an intense love of obedience. I wish I knew John Berchmans when I was a novice, I would have learned so much more and better. I wish that the love of obedience, the duty of obedience, the love of the duty of obedience were passed on to you by either parent, by anyone; and I pray that you discover and embrace it soon. Me too. It is in the love of obedience, and the choosing of whom and what to obey, that we become pure and charitable. Simply put, John conformed his will to God’s in the persons of his superiors – starting first with his parents and growing up from there.
Unfortunately, you were taught that not obeying your father was acceptable, an option, a choice for you; and when you did/do disobey your mother rewards you for it. Hard to learn the love of obedience that way. Very hard to learn how to love that way. Not my will but Thy will be done…. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08450a.htm

In 1621, John Berchmans contracted a serious, contagious, and ultimately fatal disease. With his aspiration to being a martyr, he took this ‘setback’ as a step closer to his life’s purpose. If we simply start with a purpose to being closer to God, to knowloveandserveGodinthisworld, then whatever comes our way can be taken in stride, in our striding toward the Father. The priest administering the last rites asked him if he had anything on his conscience. [I pray, and St. Joseph is a patron saint of this prayer, that I and you will have the opportunity of a holy death, a death preceded by the sacraments’ cracking open the gates of heaven for us.] John Berchmans could answer “nothing at all.” If we’re prudent in our pursuit of perfection, then we’ll be able to keep that list short. I was doing an examination of conscience earlier today in prep for confession later – the list is short, but it covers a short period; and it’s too redundant with previous lists. Ora pro me.
During his brief [adult lifetime] journey as a Jesuit, John Berchmans left nothing that he did to chance. John dedicated himself to Mary, his heavenly mother – and, I bet, he saw his own mother as an exemplar of Mary. Dedicated to your parents is a proxy, maybe even a sine qua non, for dedication to God. And, as in intermediary, and intercessor, dedication to Mary or any or several of the saints, there is a personified reason, motive, dedication, passion to do what it is that you do. Why do you do anything that you do? For John Berchmans it was to please Mary and to serve Jesus. Take a stretch here with me. Maybe you have a vocation to be married. If so, I pray that you discern not only your vocation correctly but also the identity of your spouse. One essential purpose for anything you do in marriage must be your dedication to your wife, an exemplar of Mary. You must dedicate yourself to your wife, not your self, to the marriage, the sacrament, your personal personification of the love of Jesus for us all, especially His Church. Without such direct, explicit, persistent, loving dedication as the purpose of everything you do then your marriage in not likely to be sacramentally successful. In this way, your devotion to your wife and the blessings of your marriage will increase every day.

John Berchmans was canonized on the same day as Alphonsus Rodriquez and Peter Claver.

In October 1866, in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, just north of Lafayette, in the bayou country, we had one of the miracles that contributed to the canonization of John Berchmans. Mary Wilson, a Canadian Presbyterian, was baptized by the Jesuits in 1862 when she was 16. Four years later, rejected by her own family, she joined the Sacred Heart nuns. On the day before she was to receive her habit, she became deathly ill. Now here’s a weird story. After receiving the last rights, she prayed to John Berchmans for either a cure or the acceptance of her illness – I wonder how John Berchmans was known to her in Grand Coteau, LA?! Then she placed a holy card of John Berchmans on her tongue. At once, she felt a finger on her tongue. She confirmed with the vision that he was John Berchmans, who said he was sent by God to tell her that she was cured. http://www.stthomasirondequoit.com/SaintsAlive/id789.htm Grand Coteau, LA?! A Canadian Presbyterian. You put the pieces together….

I love you
dad