St. John of Capistrano
Posted on November 6, 2020 by admin No comments
Born: 24 June 1386 Capestrano, Abruzzi, Kingdom of Naples
Died: 23 October 1456 (aged 70) Ilok, Syrmia, Kingdom of Hungary
Venerated: in Roman Catholic Church
Canonized: 1690 or 1724, Rome by either Pope Alexander VIII or Pope Benedict XIII
Feast: 23 October; 28 March (General Roman Calendar, 1890–1969)
Patronage: Jurists, Belgrade and Hungary
Today’s saint, like Saints Francis of Assisi, Maximilian Kolbe, Jerome Emiliani and many other male saints, was a prisoner of war. And just like all the others, imprisonment changed John of Capistrano forever. Being confined to the four walls of a prison made him realize how precious was the life that God had given him and how sad it was to waste it on frivolities. John had studied law before he was captured in battle and had even become the mayor of the major Italian city of Perugia. He was bright, energetic, and successful. Life was his oyster. John’s mature decision to enter religious life was not, then, an escape hatch from real life or the last exit on a dead-end road. He had silver in his hands but dropped it to stretch for the gold. In a shocking display of humility after giving his life to Christ, John mounted a donkey backwards and rode through the streets of his town wearing only a list of his worst sins. People ridiculed him and pelted him with mud and dung. In this forlorn state, he presented himself at the door of a Franciscan monastery to seek admission. He was immediately accepted. After studies, he was ordained a priest in 1421.
John’s well of humility had no bottom, and his physical austerities never ceased. He continually mortified himself. He fasted, went barefoot, and slept little throughout his life. He was a protégé of the great Saint Bernardino of Siena, a fellow Franciscan. Like Bernardino, John became a renowned preacher and traveled throughout Central and Northern Europe drawing vast crowds. John lived poverty so totally that he, along with other reforming Franciscans of his generation, made it appear as if they were the measure for Christ’s poverty, instead of Christ being the example and inspiration for Franciscan poverty. John’s radical poverty and other reforming efforts were also the beginning of the divisions that would eventually cleave the body Franciscan into three distinct Orders.
Already famous in his mid-sixties as a theologian, preacher, and inquisitor, John was appointed by the Pope to lead a team of Franciscan missionaries to Hungary and the Bohemian peoples of Central Europe. John Hus, a Bohemian priest, had been burned at the stake by the Church for heresy in 1415. This searing event had caused his followers, known as Hussites, to increasingly separate themselves from the Church. Hussite theology was a precursor to the Protestant movement that engulfed Northern Europe one hundred years after Hus’ death. The Pope wanted John of Capistrano to either convert the Hussites or to subjugate them.
John’s mission to Hungary and Central Europe produced mixed results. He was an effective crusher of heretics, but his techniques did not always display the tact such a delicate mission required. After the shocking fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, John led a preaching crusade to unify a Christian response to the threat of impending Muslim expansion. At the age of seventy, Saint John personally led troops in a successful battle to defend Belgrade from the Turks, but he died soon afterward. Over two centuries after his death, John and his melodic last name of Capistrano were immortalized by his Franciscan brothers when they named a large mission in Southern California in his honor. The Mission of San Juan Capistrano, although ruined by earthquakes, is a much visited stop on the famous chain of missions that wind up and down the spine of California. This soldier-priest and tireless reformer and preacher was canonized in 1724.
Prayer to St. John of Capistrano
Saint John of Capistrano, we ask your intercession to embolden all preachers to present the truths of Catholicism in all their fullness and vigor, and to buttress that preaching by an impeccable life of virtue and apostolic activity. Amen
Prayer to St. John of Capistrano
St. John, your life was colorful and full of heroic feats; pray that we who are not given to spectacular displays of faith and courage may be loyal and faithful in the little things that come across our way throughout our daily lives. St. John, you were known as a healer and many people brought their sick loved ones to you to be healed. Pray for those who are suffering from ill health whom we bring before you this day. St. John, you won many souls away from heresy by your preaching and by your holy example; pray for our fallen away friends and relatives, that they may come back to the One, True, Holy, and Apostolic Church. Amen.
Prayer to St. John of Capistrano
Lord, Thou raised up Saint John of Capistrano to give Thy people comfort in their trials. May Thy Church enjoy unending peace and be secure in Thy protection. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen
Novena to St. John of Capistrano
(Please recite this novena for 9 consecutive days)
I will rejoice in the Lord, And I will joy in God my Jesus. The Lord God is my strength. Rejoice to God our helper, Sing aloud to the God of Jacob.
Glory be to the Father …
I will rejoice in the Lord, And I will joy in God my Jesus. The Lord God is my strength. The Lord is my strength and my praise, And He is become salvation to me. He is my God, and I will glorify Him. The Lord is a man of war, Almighty is His Name. The Lord Who breaketh battles, the Lord is His Name.
They sang to Thy holy Name, O Lord, And they praised Thy victorious Hand.
St. John Capistrano called upon the most high Sovereign, When the enemies assaulted him on every side, And the great and holy God heard him.
O Lord, look mercifully upon our penances, Regard with mercy our fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, that through the intercession of St. John Capistrano, Thy confessor, they may break the snares of our enemies and establish us securely in Thy safe keeping.
Mother benign of our redeeming Lord, Star of the sea and portal of the skies, Unto thine fallen people help afford, Fallen, but striving anew to rise.
Thou who did once, while wondering worlds adored, Bear thy Creator, Virgin then as now, O by thy holy joy at Gabriel’s word, Pity the sinners who before thee bow. Amen.
O God, Who through blessed John Capistrano did enable Thy faithful people
to triumph over the enemies of the Cross by the power of the most holy Name of Jesus: grant, we beseech Thee, that by his merits and intercession we may overcome the snares of our malicious and spiritual enemies, keep Thy Church in perpetual peace, grant us the special graces we now implore:
[Mention you special intentions]
And may we be found worthy to receive from Thee the crown of justice. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.