San juan de dios biography of barack

At night, he took what little money he had earned and brought food and comfort to the poor living in abandoned buildings and under bridges. Thus his first hospital was the streets of Granada. Eventually, he was able to rent a house in order to move his nursing ministry inside. Of course he rented the house without money for furnishings, medicine, or help, so he supported the hospital by begging.

He went out into the streets and carried his ill patients back on his shoulders. Once there he cleaned them, dressed their wounds, and mended their clothes at night while he prayed. Throughout his life he was criticized by people who didn't like the fact that his impulsive love embraced anyone in need without asking for credentials or character witnesses.

On one occasion, his persistent desire to help saved many people when the Royal Hospital caught fire. He rushed into the blazing building and carried or led the patients out. Ver de sus cartas: " Jesucristo es fiel y lo provee todo " San Juan de Dios funda hospitales de ayuda a los enfermos mentales en el siglo XVI. De familia pobre pero muy piadosa.

Deambulaba por las calles pidiendo misericordia a Dios por todos su pecados. La gente lo creyeron en efecto loco y lo trataban con gran desprecio. Hasta lo atacaban a pedradas y golpes. One day, when John was eight years of age, he disappeared. Whether he had been deliberately kidnapped, or whether he had been seduced from his home by a cleric who had been given hospitality in the home, is not clear.

According to his original biography, his mother died from grief soon after this, and his father joined the Franciscan Order. The young Cidade soon found himself a homeless orphan in the streets of Oropesanear ToledoSpain.

San juan de dios biography of barack

There, in a foreign land, he had no one to care for him, nothing on which to live, and he had to be content with whatever food he could find. He was eventually taken in by a man called Francisco Mayoral and the boy settled down as a shepherd caring for his sheep in the countryside. The farmer was so pleased with Cidade's strength and diligence that he wanted him to marry his daughter and to become his heir.

While serving there, he was appointed to guard an enormous amount of loot, much of which had been rifled by the time he was relieved. Suspicion naturally fell on Cidade; even if he had not been involved in the theft, at the least he was guilty of dereliction of duty. He was condemned to death, and that would have been his fate had not some more tolerant officer intervened to win his pardon.

Disillusioned by this turn of events after what he felt was faithful military service, Cidade returned to the farm in Oropesa. He then spent four years again following a pastoral life. This went on until the day that the Count and his troops marched by, on their way to fight in Hungary against the Turks. Still unmarried, he immediately decided to enlist with them and left Oropesa for a final time.

For the next 18 years he served as a trooper in various parts of Europe. Then Cidade found himself so close to his homeland, he decided to return to his hometown and to see what he could learn of the family he had lost so many years before. By that time, he had forgotten his parents' names but retained enough information from his childhood that he was able to track down an uncle he had still living in the town.

He learned their fate from this uncle and, realizing that he no longer had real ties to the region, returned to Spain. Cidade arrived near Sevillewhere he soon found work herding sheep, which was familiar to him. With the time now available to him to ponder his life, he began to realize that this occupation no longer satisfied him, and he felt a desire to see Africa and possibly give his life as a martyr through working to free Christians enslaved there.

He set out for the Portuguese territory of Ceuta located on the northern coast of Africa. On the way, he befriended a Portuguese knight also traveling there with his wife and daughters, who was being exiled to that region by the King of Portugal for some crime he had committed. When they arrived in the colony, the knight found that the few possessions the family had been able to take with them had been stolen, leaving them penniless.

Additionally the entire family had become ill. Having no other recourse, the knight appealed to Cidade for his help. He promised to care for the family and began to nurse them and found work to provide them with food, despite the poor treatment poor citizens received at the hands of the colony's rulers. The desertion of one of Cidade's coworkers to a nearby Muslim city in order to escape this treatment which meant his conversion to that faith led to a growing feeling of despair in him.

Troubled and feeling spiritually lost from his failure to practice his faith during his years of military service, he went to the Franciscan friary in the colony. There he was advised that his desire to be in Africa was not working to his spiritual growth and that he should consider returning to Spain. He decided to do this. It was during this period of his life that Cidade is said to have had a vision of the Infant Jesuswho bestowed on him the name by which he was later known, John of Godalso directing him to go to Granada.

At age 42, he had what was perceived at the time as an acute mental breakdown. Moved by the sermon, he engaged in a public beating of himself, begging mercy and wildly repenting for his past life.