Saint John the Baptist de Rossi – 23 May – Saint Of The Day
Saint John the Baptist de Rossi. An Italian priest and a model for all caregivers. Epileptic and selflessly caring for others. The one who said ignorance is the leprosy of the soul.
Saint John the Baptist de Rossi / Giovanni Battista de Rossi (1698–1764) was an Italian priest who worked as an assistant pastor in Rome for 40 years. One might call his life very uneventful, however he touched thousands of people in need. He devoted himself to the sick poor in Roman hospitals and ministered to street people in a shelter. He is an amazing model for all caregivers.
Despite his constant fears that his epileptic seizures might become an obstacle to his ministry, he didn’t get discouraged but kept helping others by opening shelters for homeless women and working with prisoners and sick people, to whom he devoted his entire church mission. He also encouraged other priests to follow him in serving the poor and needy by saying that
Ignorance is the leprosy of the soul.
Here is a excerpt from one of his sermons to priests:
Ignorance is the leprosy of the soul. How many such lepers exist in the church here in Rome, where many people don’t even know what’s necessary for their salvation? It must be our business to try to cure this disease. The souls of our neighbors are in our hands, and yet how many are lost through our fault? The sick die without being properly prepared because we have not given time or care enough to each particular case. Yet with a little more patience, a little more perseverance, a little more love, we could have led these poor souls to heaven.
Many of us shrink from going to the hospitals from fear of infection or from the sights and smells that await us there. Courage! We are not in the world to follow our own will and pleasure, but to imitate the Lord.
John Baptist de Rossi, himself worn out by his unselfish service, suffered a stroke in 1763 and died a year later. “The poor come to church tired and distracted by their daily troubles. If you preach a long sermon they can’t follow you. Give them one idea that they can take home, not half a dozen, or one will drive out the other, and they will remember none.”
—John Baptist de Rossi
Iconography – Priest’s attire, crucifix – A priest praying for a sick person
