Post #6423

Shining of science and piety, the Bishop of Paris conferred him, despite his humble resistance, the sacred order of priesthood, so that, during his stay in such city, his wisdom and conduct would enlighten the young students. In offering for the first time to God the Holy Sacrifice of Mass (28th of February 1193) in the Bishop’s chapel, where he assisted with other people, was relieved by a celestial grace, It appeared to him exactly an Angel with a radiant face, clad with a habit of a wonderful whiteness, he had attached a red and light blue cross on his chest; his arms were crossed and placed on two slaves with chains at the feet placed at the sides, one pale and gaunt (Christian) and the other black and deformed (Mauritanian). By which vision he was captured in ecstasy, the man of God immediately understood that he was destined to ransom those Christians made captives from the hands of the Saracens (Oratio). But to proceed with more maturity in such thing of great importance, he retired in solituted in the locality Cerfroid in Brumetz in Upper France. There it happened, by divine will, that he met St. Felix of Valois, who had been living in the hermitage for many years: to which he joined, living togeteher for three years in prayer and contemplation, and exercising in the practice of all virtues (Introitus). There happened, that, while reaasoning together of divine things near a fount, a deer approached them carrying a red and blue cross between its horns. And as Felix was amazed at the novelty of the thing, John told him the vision he had in the first Mass; then they applied themselves with renewed fervor to prayer and, warned three times in a dream, they resolved to leave for Rome, to implore the Supreme Pontiff to institute a new order for the ransom of slaves. In the meanwhile Innocent III had been elected Supreme Pontiff; he received them with kindness, and while he was deliberating on their proposal, on the feast of St. Agnes for the second time, in the Lateran, during the elevation of the Host of the solemn Mass, a white-robed Angel appeared to him, with a two-colored cross, in the guise of a man who redeemed slaves. Behind which vision, the Supreme Pontiff approved the institute and its rule on the 17th of December 1198 with the bull Operante divine dispositionis, and wanted the new religious family to be called Order of the Most Holy Trinity for the redemption of captives, ordering its professed to wear white dress with a red and blue cross. Thus instituted the Order, the holy founders returned to France, and, having founded the first monastery at Cerfroid in the diocese of Meaux (since 1801 in the diocese of Soissons), Felix remained there to govern it; while John with some companions returned to Rome, where Pope Innocent III gave them the house, the abbey church and the hospital of San Tommaso in Formis on the Celio hill with many revenues and properties. He also gave them letters for the Miramolin (from the Arabic amīr al-mu'minīn "chief emir of believers") king of Morocco, and so the ransom work began under happy auspices. Then John left for Spain, largely oppressed by the yoke of the Saracens, and excited the hearts of kings, princes and other faithful to compassion for the slaves and the poor. Thanks to the numerous alms (Epistola) obtained from kings and princes of France and Spain, he was able to free a large number of Christians who had fallen into the hands of the infidels. He built monasteries, erected hospitals, and redeemed many slaves with great profit for souls. Finally returned to Rome, he devoted himself to holy works and lived many years in the service of Pope Gregory IX, as a Pontifical Chaplain. Overwhelmed by constant fatigue and exhausted by illness, burning with the most ardent love for God and neighbor, he was reduced to extremes. Whence the brothers gathered and exhorted them effectively to the work of the ransom indicated to him by heaven, he fell asleep in the Lord on December 17 in the year of our salvation 1213.