Oct 9 – S John Leonardi

It’s the Feast of St. John Leonardi, 3rd Class, with the color of White. In this episode: the meditation: “Hell”, today’s news from the Church: “Saint Marys: Growth that Shows No signs of Slowing Down”, a preview of this week’s episode of The SSPX Podcast: “What Does the Holy Ghost Do?”, and today’s thought from the Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

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Saint John Leonardi was a pharmacist who became a priest, founded a religious order, and eventually helped lay the groundwork for the Church’s worldwide missionary efforts.

He was born in 1541 near Lucca, Italy, and as a young man trained to become an apothecary. In those days, an apothecary was part pharmacist, part herbalist, and part medical adviser. John learned how to prepare medicines, treat illnesses, and care for people who came looking for help.

But the more he worked with the sick, the more he began thinking about another kind of healing.

The healing of souls.

At thirty-one, John was ordained a priest, and he immediately noticed something troubling. Many Catholics in Lucca knew surprisingly little about their faith. The Council of Trent had called for better religious instruction, but putting those reforms into practice was taking time.

John decided to do something about it.

He began gathering children and young people for catechism lessons. Before long, other priests joined him, and in 1574 he founded the community that eventually became the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God.

And that’s when the trouble started.

Not everyone appreciated John’s enthusiasm for reform. His efforts to improve religious life brought him into conflict with influential people in Lucca. Opposition became so intense that he was eventually forced to leave his hometown.

Imagine founding a religious community to help your neighbors and then discovering that some of those neighbors would rather you stayed away.

John took the disappointment to Rome.

There, he became friends with Saint Philip Neri and continued working for the renewal of the Church. He also developed a remarkable interest in foreign missions.

Together with the Spanish priest Juan Bautista Vives, John promoted the idea of establishing a center in Rome where young men from different nations could be trained as missionaries.

That proposal helped prepare the way for the Church’s later missionary institutions, including the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, established in 1622, thirteen years after John’s death.

There’s also an interesting connection to his original profession.

John never really stopped being an apothecary at heart.

He simply came to believe that the Church needed spiritual medicine just as urgently as sick people needed physical medicine. His approach to reform wasn’t merely to criticize what was wrong. He wanted to provide better priests, better catechism, and better spiritual formation.

In 1609, when an epidemic struck Rome, John personally cared for the sick. He contracted the disease himself and died on October 9.

He was sixty-eight.

Today, his relics are venerated in the Church of Santa Maria in Campitelli in Rome, where the religious community he founded continues its work.

John Leonardi began his career preparing medicine for the body.

He spent the rest of his life trying to bring souls back to health.

Saint John Leonardi, devoted teacher of the faith and physician of souls, pray for us.

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What is the SSPX Podcast?

The SSPX Podcast is produced by Angelus Press, which has as its mission the fortification of traditional Catholics so that they can defend the Faith, and reaching out to those who have not yet found Tradition.

What is the SSPX?

The main goal of the Society of Saint Pius X is to preserve the Catholic Faith in its fullness and purity, to teach its truths, and to diffuse its virtues, especially through the Roman Catholic priesthood.

Authentic spiritual life, the sacraments, and the traditional liturgy are its primary means of bringing this life of grace to souls.

Although the traditional Latin Mass is the most visible and public expression of the work of the Society, we are committed to defending Catholic Tradition in its entirety: all of Catholic doctrine and morals as the Church has always defended them. What people need is the Catholic Faith, without compromise, with all the truth and beauty which accompanies it.

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