John Grande, the Sinner, Blessed (GIOVANNI GRANDE, IL PECCATORE, BEATO)

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

GIOVANNI GRANDE, the SINNER, blessed. - Hospitaller Brother, b. at Carmona (Andalusia) in 1546, d. at Jerez de la Frontera (Andalusia) on 3 June 1600. Directed toward commerce, at the age of twenty-two he withdrew into a hermitage; he later went to Jerez de la Frontera, where he began his apostolate of charity among prisoners.

At the age of twenty-five he devoted himself to the care of the sick in the hospital of N. Signora dei Rimedi, but, having been expelled through the action of ill-disposed persons, he founded another hospital in the same city. Meanwhile, the archbishop of Seville entrusted him with the direction and reorganization of all the hospitals of Jerez. In 1579 he entered, together with the companions who assisted him, the Hospitallers of S. Giovanni di Dio, or Fatebenefratelli. He laboured especially during the plague of 1600, and, having offered himself to the Lord for the cessation of the terrible scourge, he became its last precious victim. He was beatified by Pio IX in 1853. Feast: 3 June.

BIBL.: Vita del b. G. G., detto il Pecador, religioso professo dell'Ordine Ospitaliero di S. Giovanni di Dio, Rome 1853; A. Coudour, Vie du b. Jean Grande dit le Pécheur, de l'Ordre des Frères de St Jean de Dieu, Lyons 1858; J. Vincke, s. V. in LThK, V, col. 501. Further bibliography in A. Butler, The lives of the Saints, new ed. edited by H. Thurston and N. Leeson, VI, London 1949, p. 43.