St. Giovanni Gualberto
(c. 985 – 1073)
Italian abbot & founder of the Vallumbrosan Order
John Gaulbert was born of a noble Florentine family towards the end of the 10th century. In accordance with his father's wishes, he took up a military career. It happened that his only brother, Hugh, was slain by a kinsman.
On Good Friday, John, at the head of an armed band, met the murderer alone and unarmed, in a spot where they could not avoid each other. Seeing death imminent, the murderer, with arms outstretched in the form of a cross, begged for mercy, and John, through reverence for the sacred sign, graciously spared him. Having thus changed his enemy into a brother, he went to pray in the Church of San Miniato, which was near at hand; and as he was adoring the image of Christ crucified, he saw it bend its head towards him john was deeply touched by this miracle, and determined, thenceforward, to fight for God alone, even against his father's wish; so on the spot he cut off his own hair and put on the monastic habit.
Very soon his pious and religious manner of life shed abroad so great a luster that he became to many a living rule and pattern of perfection. Hence on the death of the Abbott of the place he was unanimously chosen superior. But the servant of God, preferring obedience to superiority, and moreover being reserved by the divine will for greater things, betook himself to Romuald, who was then living in the desert of Camaldoli, and who, inspired by Heaven, announced to him the institute he was to form; whereupon he laid the foundations of his order under the rule of St Benedict at Vallumbrosa. Soon afterwards many, attracted by the renown of his sanctity, flocked to him from all sides. He received them into his society, and together with them he zealously devoted himself to rooting out heresy and Simony, and propagating the Apostolic Faith; on account of which devotedness both he and his disciples suffered innumerable injuries. Thus, his enemies in their eagerness to destroy him and his brethren, suddenly attacked the monastery of Saan Salvy by night, burned the church, demolished the buildings, and mortally wounded all the monks. The man of God, however, restored them all forthwith to health by a single sign of the cross. Peter, one of his monks, miraculously walked unhurt through a huge blazing fire, and thus John obtained for himself and his sons the peace they so much desired. From that time forward every stain of Simony disappeared from Tuscany; and faith, throughout all of Italy was restored to its former purity.
John built many entirely new monasteries and restored many others both as to their material buildings and their regular observance, strengthening them all with the bulwark of wholly regulations. In order to feed the poor he sold the sacred vessels of the altar. The elements were obedient to his will when he sought to check evil doers; and the sign of the cross was the sword he used whereby to conquer the Devils. At length, worn out by abstinence watching, fasting, prayer, maceration of the flesh, and finally old age, he fell into a grievous malady, during which he repeated unceasingly the words of David: “My soul hath thirsted after the strong living God: when shall I come and appear before the face of God?” When death drew near, calling together his disciples, he exhorted them to preserve fraternal union. Then he caused these words to be written on a paper which he wished should be buried with him: “I, John, believe and confess the faith which the Holy Apostles preached, and the Holy Fathers in the four councils have confirmed." At length having been honored during three days with the gracious presence of angels, and the 78th year of his age, he departed to the Lord at Passignano, Where he is honored with the highest veneration. He died in the year of salvation 1073, on the fourth of the Ides of July; and having become celebrated by innumerable miracles, was enrolled by Celestine III in the number of the saints.
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Here is the story that Dom Prosper Gueranger tells of St. John today:
The 10th century had witnessed the humiliation of the Supreme Pontificate itself; early in the 11th, simony was rife among the clergy. The work of salvation was going on in the silence of the cloister; but Peter Damien had not yet come forth from the desert nor had hew of Clooney, Leo the 9th, and Hildebrand brought their united efforts to bear upon the evil. A single voice was heard to utter the cry of alarm and Rouse the people from their lethargy; it was the voice of a monk, who had once been a valiant soldier, and to whom the crucifix had bowed its head in recognition of his generous forgiveness of an enemy. John Gaulbert, seeing simony introduced into his own monastery, left it and entered Florence, only to find the pastoral staff in the hands of a hireling. The zeal of God's house was devouring his heart, and going into the public squares he denounced the bishop and his own abbot that thus he might, at least, deliver his own soul. At the sight of this monk confronting single-handed the universal corruption, the multitude was for a moment seized with stupification; but soon surprised turned into rage, and John with difficulty escaped death. From this day his special vocation was determined: the just, who had never despaired hailed him as The Avenger of Israel, and their hope was not to be confounded. But like all who are chosen for divine work he was to spend a long time under the training of the Holy Spirit. The athlete had challenged the powers of the world; the Holy War was declared: one would naturally have expected it to wage without ceasing until the enemy was defeated. And yet, the chosen soldier of Christ hastened into solitude to quote amend his life,” according to the truly Christian expression used in the foundation charter of Vallombrosa. The promoters of the disorder, startled at the suddenness of the attack, and then seeing the aggressor had suddenly disappeared, would laugh at the false alarm; but, cost what it might at the once brilliant soldier, he knew how to abide, in humility and submission, the hour of God's good pleasure.
Little by little other souls, disgusted with the state of society, came to join him; and soon the army of prayer and pennants spread throughout Tuscany. It was destined to extend overall Italy, and even to cross the mountains. Settimo, 7 miles from Florence, and San Salvi, at the gates of the city, where the strongholds whence the holy war was to recommence in 1063. Another simoniac, called Peter of Pavia, had purchased the succession of the Episcopal See. John, with all his mind, was resolved rather to die than to witness in silence this new insult offered to the Church of God. His reception this time was to be very different from the former, for the fame of his sanctity and miracles had caused him to be looked upon by the people as an oracle. No sooner was his voice heard once more in Florence than the whole flock was so stirred that the unworthy pastor, seeing he could no longer disassemble. Cast off his disguise and showed what he really was; a thief who had come only to rob and kill and destroy. By his orders a body of armed men descended upon San Salvi, set fire to the monastery, fell upon the brethren in the midst of the night office, and put them all to the sword; each monk continuing to chant till he received the fatal stroke.
John Gaulbert, hearing at Vallombrosa of the martyrdom of his sons, intoned a canticle of triumph. Florence was seized with horror and refused to communicate with the assassin bishop. Nevertheless, four years had yet to elapse before deliverance could come; and the trials of St. John had scarcely begun.
St Peter Damien, invested with full authority by the Sovereign Pontiff, had just arrived from the Eternal City. All expected that no quarter would be given to simony by its own sworn enemy, and that peace would be restored to the afflicted church. The very contrary took place. Greatest Saints may be mistaken; and so become to one another the cause of sufferings by so much the more bitter as there will, being less subject to caprice than that of other men, remains more firmly set upon the course they have adopted for the interests of God in his church. Perhaps the Great Bishop of Austina did not sufficiently take into consideration the exceptional position in which the Florentines were placed by the notorious simony of Peter of Pavia, and the violent manner in which he put to death, without form of trial, all who dared to withstand him. Starting from the indisputable principle that inferiors have no right to depose their superiors, the legate reprehended the conduct of the monks, and of all who had separated themselves from the bishop. There was but one refuge for them, the Apostolic Sea, to which they fearlessly appealed, a preceding which no one could call uncanonical. But there, says the historian, many who feared for themselves rose up against them, declaring that these monks were worthy of death for having dared to attack the prelates of the Church; while Peter Damien severely reproached them before the whole Roman Council. The Holy and glorious Pope Alexander II took the monks under his own protection and praised the uprightness of their intention. Yet he dared not comply with their request and proceed further, because the greater number of the bishops sided with Peter of Pavia; the Archdeacon Hildebrand alone was entirely in favor of the Abbott of Vallombrosa.
Nevertheless, the hour was at hand when God himself would pronounce the judgment refused them by men. While overwhelmed with threats and treated as lambs among wolves, John Gaulbert and his sons cried to heaven with the psalmist: “Arise, O Lord, and help us; arise, why does Thou sleep, O Lord? Arise, O God and judge our cause."
At Florence the storm continued to rage. St. Saviour's at Settimo had become the refugee of such of the clergy as were banished from the town by the persecution; the holy founder, who was then residing in that monastery, multiplied in their behalf the resources of his charity. At length the situation became so critical that one day, in the year 1067, the rest of the clergy and the whole population left the simoniac alone in his deserted place and fled to Settimo. Neither the length of the road, deep in mud from the rain, nor the rigorous fast observed by all, says the narrative written at that time to the Sovereign Pontiff by the clergy and the people of Florence, could stay the most delicate matrons, women about to become mothers, or even children. Evidently the Holy Ghost was actuating the crowd; they called for the judgment of God.
John Gaulbert, under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit, gave his consent to the trial; and in testimony of the truth of the accusation brought by him against the bishop of Florence, Peter, one of his monks, since known as Peter Igneus, walked slowly before the eyes of the multitude threw an immense fire, without receiving the smallest injury. Heaven had spoken: the bishop was deposed by Rome, and ended his days, a happy penitent, in that very monastery of Settimo.
In 1073, the year in which his friend Hildebrand was raised to the Apostolic See, John was called to God. His influence against simony had reached far beyond Tuscany. The Republic of Florence ordered his feast to be kept as a holiday and the following words were engraved upon his tombstone: to John Gaulbert, citizen of Florence, deliverer of Italy.
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