St. John Berchmans was a 17th-century Jesuit scholastic from the Low Countries whose memorial is marked in Jesuit parishes on Nov. 26. He died at age 22.

(Scholastics are a stage in Jesuit formation somewhat equivalent to the philosophy and perhaps early theology studies phases of seminarians, but they are not strictly “seminarians” since there will be many more study periods. For the Jesuit formation process, see here.)

Born in 1599 in Diest in today’s Belgium, Berchmans was the son of a shoemaker. He discerned a vocation early, having been an altar server at 7. At age 9, his mother became seriously ill and he spent long hours at her bedside.

It seems that after her death he began studies for the priesthood but, after a while, his father pressed him to return home to work to augment the family’s financial situation. Religious houses in Diest and, later, Mechlin, provided him room, board, and tuition in exchange for his studies. In Mechlin, Berchmans decided he wanted to become a Jesuit, a decision initially opposed by his father (since, as a religious as opposed to a diocesan priest, he would have no income to share with the family) who eventually relented.

He entered the Jesuits in 1616 and then his mother died. When she did, Berchmans father entered the diocesan seminary. Berchmans began his philosophical studies in Antwerp and then was then sent to Rome to continue them. In Rome, he distinguished himself as a student but his fragile health gave in and he died Aug. 13, 1621, holding (at his request) a crucifix, a rosary and the Ignatian Rule. He was canonized in 1888.

The early Jesuits of the 16th and 17th centuries were noted for three young men whose cults soon took root: St. Aloysius Gonzaga, St. Stanisław Kostka and Berchmans. Berchmans was the last of them and had taken Aloysius Gonzaga for a patron and model. All three were honored for their dedication and zeal; their commitment to living holy religious lives inspired others. Their vows of chastity served as examples to their peers. 

Early on and to this day, St. John Berchmans was regarded as the patron saint of altar servers and students. Perhaps — especially in our “gender-neutral” approach — we forget that being an altar boy is often the first stimulus of a priestly vocation.

Berchmans was also devoted to the English martyrs, those Catholics — including secular and Jesuit priests — martyred for trying to keep the Faith alive in Tudor England of the 1500s. Remember that what is today Belgium was the locus of the Catholic resistance and mission to England: the famous English Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible comes from nearby northern France at this time.

No doubt the time spent at his mother’s bedside as she declined over the years impressed Berchmans with a keen appreciation of human mortality. In November, as the Church remembers and prays for the Holy Souls, it is also a wholesome time to remember that death is the one appointment none of us will reschedule or cancel.

I would also argue for the value of Berchmans’ example: contemporary people, even adults, are unfamiliar with sickness and dying, things that used to be normal to previous generations. As a result, both are unreal and stoke a desire for their evasion. One sometimes hears parents debate whether a child should accompany them to a relative’s funeral, contending the event may be “traumatic.” 

Well, death itself is traumatic — the separation of our souls and bodies is generally not experienced without some note of fear. It is also inevitable, and parents do children no favors by shielding them from life … and death, especially when it is an opportunity for them to share the Christian vision of the meaning of both with them at a stage in life they are receptive to parental guidance.

St. John is depicted in art by Boethius Bolswert’s small (about 15 x 10 inches) 17th-century engraving, currently held by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, made about the time of Berchmans’ death. Bolswert was an engraver and contemporary of Rubens from the northern Dutch region of Frisia but, as a Catholic, also worked in Antwerp and Brussels, then centers of the Counter-Reformation in the Low Countries, and particularly with the Jesuits, who led that campaign. (The engraving is not on view in Philadelphia.)

Berchmans is depicted holding the three items he asked for on his deathbed: a crucifix, a rosary and the Jesuit Rule. Attired in the Jesuit cassock, he looks toward heaven with a smile, an image of our Lady with the Child Jesus (to whom he was devoted) on the wall. He kneels beside an open grave, which one can see below the open slab, upon which rests a skull and bones, reminding the viewer of human mortality of which the saint, by the gesture of his pointing finger, is aware.

On the altar stands an hourglass, whose sands remind those who see it of the significance of the passage of time. That we contrast the open grave with the youth kneeling beside it reminds us of the medieval adage, “Time and tide wait for no man.”

[For more on St. John Berchmans, see here, here and here. For more on Bolswert, see here.]