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St. John the Merciful — The Saint a Beggar Conned Three Times · Everyday Saints: A Catholic Podcast

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  A beggar walked up to one of the most powerful church leaders in the entire Christian world
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  and asked for money. He got it. Then he changed his clothes, ran ahead through the crowd, and
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  asked the exact same man for money a second time, pretending to be somebody else. He got
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  that too. And when he tried it a third time, this bishop's own servants finally recognized
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  him and moved to chase him off. The bishop? Well, he stopped them. gave the man even more
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  than before and said, Perhaps he is Christ putting me to the test.
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  Hi, my name is John O'Connor and this is Everyday Saints. This is episode 20. If you are new
• 0:54
  here, welcome to the porch, pull up a chair, grab a cup of coffee or a lemonade and stick
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  around. We look at a new saint every Thursday. Before we finally get to today's story, two
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  quick notes. One, my wife and I finally moved back to North Carolina, still unpacking and
• 1:13
  getting situated. Unsure how this episode will actually sound as the acoustics in here are
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  different, but we will see. I'll likely send it through an audio enhancer and see if that
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  helps. The other thing, quick note, is that keep an eye out for this coming Tuesday. I'm
• 1:30
  dropping a special bonus episode. It's a little different from our usual format, and I'll tell
• 1:35
  you more about it at the end of this episode. You have probably never heard this name before
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  today. And here's a bonus. You are actually getting two saints in one episode today. Not
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  just one. Completely free of charge, I should add. This is the story of Saint John the Merciful.
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  And before we are done, we are going to meet that second saint too. A monk under his care,
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  whose story became the single hardest test of everything John believed about mercy. John
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  was born on the island of Cyprus, somewhere around the year 550 or 560 AD. His father,
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  held real power on the island, an important government official. So John grew up around
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  wealth and status most people never see. Following his parents' wishes, John married young and
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  had children of his own. By every measure, he was set up for an ordinary, comfortable life
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  as a nobleman's son. But then his wife died. Following that, his children died too. The
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  record doesn't dwell on the details of that grief. But it doesn't have to. John responded
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  to losing his entire family by turning toward religious life. Not bitterly, not as a way
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  of running from the world, but by pouring all that love somewhere else instead. He became
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  a monk. Word of his character spread. When the position of Patriarch of Alexandria, one of
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  the most powerful and prestigious offices in the entire Christian world at the time, came
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  open around the year 610 AD, the emperor and the clergy of the city specifically asked for
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  John by name. Now, what John did with that power is quite remarkable, and it's not just one
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  story. It's a whole pattern told and retold by the people who watched him live it out.
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  The office John now ran controlled enormous wealth, money, land, even a shipping fleet.
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  John treated all of it as something to be emptied out, not preserved. He personally registered
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  more than 7,000 of the poorest people in Alexandria and arranged for them to be fed every single
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  day out of church funds. He explained his own approach to giving with a story from his youth.
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  He said he had once had a vision of a beautiful woman who told him she was compassion with
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  a capital C. the eldest daughter of God, sent to bring him closer to the Son of God himself
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  than any other virtue could. He said he never forgot her face or what she told him that day.
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  And from that point on, mercy wasn't just something he did when he felt like it. It was something
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  he owed people every single time, not just when it was easy. And there's something else worth
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  knowing here too, because It shows how much John's generosity actually cost him. Christians
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  in his day were deeply divided, split into rival camps over disagreements about their
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  faith, serious enough to turn whole cities against each other. Now, John belonged to one
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  side of that divide. He easily could have limited his famous charity to people who agreed with
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  him, but he didn't. His stated policy and the one he was remembered for was to help whoever
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  showed up in need, no matter which side they stood on. In a world where people often decided
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  who deserved help based on whether they believed the same things, that was itself a quiet, deliberate
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  stand. That's the spirit behind the beggar story you heard at the top of this episode. John
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  didn't just tolerate being tested three times by the same man in three different disguises.
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  He assumed out loud that this might genuinely be Christ testing him and decided that even
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  a real chance of being played for a fool was worth it. If it meant never once turning away
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  someone who might actually be in need. He treated merchants the same way. One man came to him
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  after losing everything in the shipwreck. John gave him the money to rebuild. The man's next
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  venture, well, failed. And then he came back. John gave again. When the same merchant lost
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  a third ship, John didn't just hand him coins this time. He gave the man an entire grain
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  ship belonging to his official office, fully loaded so the man could finally get back on
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  his feet for good. John was not a pushover though, and this part matters because it's easy to
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  hear endlessly generous and assume easily used. He had a close friend named Nicotas, a powerful
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  government official under the emperor. At the time, the empire, the eastern half of what
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  used to be the old Roman empire, was deep in a costly war against Persia. And Nicotas tried
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  to divert some of the church's wealth toward funding the fight. John refused flatly. He
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  wasn't going to let the resources set aside for Alexandria's poor get swept into a war
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  budget, friendship, or no friendship. The disagreement got serious enough that it specifically recorded
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  and it ended with Nikitas backing down and apologizing. When the Persian army sacked Jerusalem and
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  drove the refugees flooding into Egypt, John didn't wait to be asked. He organized supply
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  convoys to the survivors near Jerusalem and opened Alexandria to refugees fleeing the destruction.
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  extending his sense of responsibility well past the edges of his own city. But nothing tested
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  how far John's mercy really went, quite like a monk under his authority named Vitalis. Now,
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  Vitalis had spent most of his life quietly inside a monastery near Gaza. Then somewhere around
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  the age of 60, he did something nobody expected. He moved to Alexandria, and started keeping
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  a list, the name and location of every prostitute working in the city. He took a day job as a
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  laborer and every single night he take that day's wages straight to one of the women on
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  his list. I want to be upfront with you here because this is exactly the kind of detail
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  where legend and verify history blur together. Tradition says he'd pay the women enough to
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  cover a night's lost income. and simply ask her to rest, not to work if you catch my drift.
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  While she slept, Vitalis stayed awake in the corner, praying for her until morning, then
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  left before sunrise to earn the money to do it again the next night. As he approached each
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  door, he reportedly announced loudly where he was going, so no one could accuse him of hiding
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  it. When people demanded to know what a monk was doing at a brothel, He'd snap back. Have
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  I not a body like everyone else? Mind your own business. You can guess how that looked from
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  the street. For years, Vitalis was mocked and harassed. Devout Christians in the city were
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  scandalized. Eventually, a group of clergy went straight to John and demanded Vitalis be excommunicated.
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  And this is where John's whole character gets tested directly. He had every reason to act.
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  Pressure from his own clergy. A scandal threatening the church's reputation. A simple explanation
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  sitting right there if he just wanted to condemn the man. John refused. He wouldn't rule on
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  rumor. He wouldn't sacrifice a man standing without actual proof of wrongdoing. No matter
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  how loud the accusations got or how long they went on. Vitalis was killed years later,
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  struck by a man who misunderstood exactly what he was doing outside a brothel. It's unclear
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  whether the attacker was a jealous client or an outraged bystander. The record doesn't say
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  for certain. What is recorded is what happened after. As his body was carried through the
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  city, the women whose names had been on his list for years came forward one by one with
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  candles and told the truth. Money so they wouldn't have to work one night and a stranger who stayed
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  awake praying for them until dawn, asking for nothing in return. John himself led the funeral
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  procession through the streets of Alexandria. The same people who had spent years assuming
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  the worst of Alphi Talas reportedly made themselves a quiet promise that day. To stop judging so
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  quickly based only on what things looked like from a distance. John's years of patient refusal
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  to condemn a man without proof had been right all along. John didn't get to stay in Alexandria
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  forever. When the Persians pushed further into Egypt, threatening the city itself, John was
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  forced to flee back to his home island of Cyprus, the same place he'd left behind decades earlier.
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  Tradition holds that he predicted his own death shortly before it happened, telling those close
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  to him that his time was near with the same plain, unbothered acceptance He had shown
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  toward every loss in his life up to that point. He died there, not long after, having given
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  away nearly everything that he had a power over, ending his life with essentially nothing to
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  his name. Even after his death, his story kept moving in a way that feels fitting for a man
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  who spent his whole life giving away what he had instead of holding on to it. His relics
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  were eventually taken to Constantinople, Then centuries later to Budapest during a period
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  of war and upheaval, and finally settled in Venice where they still rest today in a church
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  that bears his name. A man who gave away a whole fortune that was never really his to keep,
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  still in a sense, on the move himself long after his death. All right, back to the porch.
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  Here's what sits with me about John. He ran two completely different kinds of risk in this
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  story, and he was willing to take both of them. with a beggar and the merchant, if you remember,
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  his risk was generosity. Being fooled, giving too much, looking naive. With Vitalis, his
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  risk went the opposite direction entirely, withholding judgment, refusing to act, and
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  looking weak or complicit while an entire city demanded he do something.
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  Most of us are only really comfortable with one of those risks. Some of us give freely
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  but judge quickly. Happy to hand someone money, but the second a rumor starts, we are ready
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  to believe the worst and move on. Now others of us are slow to judge but tight-fisted,
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  patient with people's reputations but, uh-huh, guarded with anything that actually costs us
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  something. John did both at once, consistently, for years, even when either one could have
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  blown up in his face publicly. I think that's the harder lesson here. It's not just be generous.
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  It's not just don't judge people too fast either. Both of those really come down to the same
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  thing. Being willing to be wrong about someone. Generosity risks getting fooled. Patience
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  risks looking like you are covering for someone. John took both of those ricks over and over
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  because the alternative was shutting out people who actually needed him. And I don't think
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  this was easy for John. He wasn't just some naturally trusting guy who never got bothered
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  by any of it. He watched a beggar con him right in front of him and gave anyway. He stood his
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  ground against his own clergy for years regarding Vitalis, looking weak, looking naive, with
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  no idea if he would ever be proven right. That's not something you decide once. He had to keep
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  choosing it over and over, day after day. Long before anybody found out he had been right
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  all along. So, here's what I'm sitting with this week. Where in your own life have you
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  quietly decided that avoiding being fooled matters more than actually helping somebody? And where
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  have you decided it's safer to assume the worst about someone than to risk being wrong in their
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  favor? Hmm. It is now time for the closing prayer. Lord, thank you for John and for a mercy that
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  didn't need proof to act and a patience that didn't need pressure to fold. For anyone listening
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  who's grown guarded, tired of being taken advantage of, soften that guard just a little, the way
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  John's never fully closed. And for anyone who's been the one misjudged, The way Vitalis was?
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  Let them know that somewhere, someone is refusing to believe the worst about them too. Amen.
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  Saint John the Merciful is recognized as the patron of Egypt and is remembered above all
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  for his radical charity toward the poor. His feast day is celebrated on November 12th in
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  the Eastern Orthodox Church and January 23rd in the Roman Catholic tradition. Saint Vitalis,
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  the monk whose story we also just told, is recognized as the patron saint of prostitutes and day
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  laborers. His feast day falls on January 11th in the Western Church and April 22nd in the
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  Eastern Orthodox tradition. Well, that's episode 20. If this one changed how quick you are to
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  judge or how tight you hold on to what you've got, send it to somebody who needs to hear
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  it. Before you go, this Tuesday, I've got a special bonus episode coming, a bit different
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  from our usual saint stories. It's something I've wanted to sit down and talk through honestly
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  for a while now. So keep an eye out for it. And next week, we are back to a known name,
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  one with a story from a war a lot closer to living memory than you'd expect. I'm John O'Connor.
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  Thanks for sitting on the porch with me, and I will see you next week.