Venerated in Roman Catholic Church Attributes Capuchin habit
Rosary | Feast 5 March | |
Born 29 June 1556
Sasca, Moldavia (now in Suceava County, Romania) ( 1556-06-29 ) Beatified 30 October 1983, Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City by Pope John Paul II Died 5 March 1625, Naples, Italy | ||
Blessed Ion Costist (29 June 1556 – 5 March 1625) was a Moldavian Roman Catholic who served as a professed religious - though not a priest - of the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor in Naples after he immigrated there during his adolescence. Upon his profession as a friar, he assumed the name of "Geremia from Wallachia" and became noted for his careful attention to the merciful works and to the care of the poor. His vision of the Blessed Mother resulted in one of the best known images created of him.
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He was beatified on 30 October 1983.
Life
Ion Costist was born on 29 June 1556 in Moldavia to Stoika Costist and Margherita Barbato.
It was his wish to visit the Italian peninsula to serve God and this was fuelled when his mother told him it was a place "where the monks were all holy and there was the pope, the Vicar of Christ". The fact that he was illiterate and knew his own dialect and no other language did not hinder his decision.
He arrived in the Kingdom of Naples in Bari at the age of eighteen in 1574 where he began to serve the celebrated doctor Pietro Lo Iacono but found that the peninsula was not as devout and as good as his mother made it our to be; he was then resolved to go back home. But Providence decided for him a different fate and he was called elsewhere and did not arrive in Naples until 1578 where he met the Order of Friars Minor (he saw in them the monks his mother described to him); in May 1578 he was clothed in the Capuchin habit in their convent of Sessa Aurunca. He made his religious profession with his new name - "Geremia from Wallachia" - on 8 May 1579. Between the period of 1579 to 1584 he served as a friar to various friaries; among those positions was in 1585 acting as a medical assistant at the Capuchin medical centre in their convent of Saint Eframo Nuovo in Naples.
A particular phrase common among his peers was: "who can achieve the charity of Brother Geremia?" He was known to act on all the merciful acts both corporal and spiritual; these acted as his vision for his life and indeed the core of his own characteristics. He believed that God was merciful love but also applied this to the Trinity, the Passion of Jesus Christ, the Eucharist, the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Universal Church; he extended this with his belief that humankind was the gift of the Lord's merciful love.
Costist was known to his peers for his insightful discussions and for his natural talents at consoling those who suffered. He was perceived to radiate personal warmth and an aura of being a simple friar. He spent his nights in the cells of the ill or of other friars and even said himself that he was so poor he could not even hope to afford the rent of a cell for himself. Costist would proclaim thanks: "Lord, I thank You because I have always served and have never been served. I have always been subject and have never been commanded".
On 14 August 1608 - the eve of the Feast of the Assumption - he had a vision of the Blessed Mother in which he enquired to her the reason she did not wear a crown; she responded with: "Here is my crown: my son". He confided this vision to his friend and friar Pacifico da Salerno and soon the tale spread from person to person. An artist even made an icon that depicted this event. He would refer to her as "Mammarella Nostra".
In 1625 his superior sent him to tend to an ill person in Torre del Greco. His return to Naples witnessed him contracting pleuropneumonia; he died of that on 5 March 1625. After his death he was clothed in the habit six times since the faithful snipped parts of it off for themselves as relics. He is buried in the church of the Immaculate Conception in Naples.
Beatification
The beatification process commenced in Naples after the cause received the papal approval of Pope Urban VIII on 25 September 1627 and a move that designated the late religious with the title Servant of God as the first stage in the process. On 18 December 1959 he was declared to be Venerable after Pope John XXIII recognized that he had lived a life of heroic virtue.
The recognition of a singular miracle attributed to his intercession allowed for Pope John Paul II to preside over his beatification on 30 October 1983.