Saint of the Day – 14 February – St Juan García López-Rico O.SS.T. (1561-1613)

Saint of the Day – 14 February – St Juan García López-Rico O.SS.T. (1561-1613) Aged 51, Religious Priest of the Trinitarian Order (The Order of the Most Holy Trinity and of the Captives), Reformer, Ascetic and Penitent, prolific Writer, Theologian.   St Juan was born on 10 July 1561 in Ciudad Real, Spain and died on 14 February 1613 in Córdoba, Spain of natural causes.

St Juan was born as the fifth of eight children in 1561 to Xixón and Isabel García Marcos López-Rico.   Three of his siblings also entered religious life.

His religious calling manifested when he was fifteen when he met St Teresa of Avila. This awakened in him a calling to the Carmelites but instead he chose another order.   He studied grammar with the Carmelites in Almodóvar del Campo and then commenced his theological studies in Baeza and Toledo.

He assumed the habit of the Trinitarian Order at the age of nineteen on 28 June 1580 and made his religious profession on 29 June 1581.   He was ordained to the priesthood in 1585.   On 20 August 1599 he obtained approval for the reformation of the Trinitarians and was granted the approval of Pope Clement VIII.   He drew his inspiration of reform from St Teresa of Avila and her reform of the Carmelites.    He commenced his plan of reformation for the monasteries and continued despite opposition that he faced.

The process for canonisation commenced under Pope Innocent XI on 16 February 1677 which granted him the posthumous title Servant of God.  Pope Clement XIII approved that he had lived a life of heroic virtue and proclaimed him to be Venerable on 10 August 1760.

After the approval of two miracles attributed to his intercession Pope Pius VII beatified him on 26 September 1819 and the approval of a third allowed for St Pope Paul VI to canonise him on 25 May 1975.