Today, December 17, is the memorial of Saint John de Matha.
Founder of the Order of the Most Holy Trinity (Trinitarians).
John came from nobility, born in 1160 in southeastern France. His parents Euphemius and Martha had him sent to Aix-en-Provence for his schooling. As a student, John gave away part of his allowance to the poor and visited the sick in hospitals.
He took up theology at the University of Paris and was ordained priest at age 32 in 1192. One version of the story goes that as John celebrated his first Mass, he saw in a vision an angel dressed in white with a red and blue cross the breast. The angel placed his hands on the heads of two slaves who knelt beside him. Later, when sitting beside a stream with fellow hermit, Saint Felix of Valois, the two were given the vision of a white stag between whose antlers was suspended a blue and red cross. It was understood that an order was to be founded: to ransom Christians held captive by nonbelievers, a consequence of crusading and pirating along the Mediterranean coast of Europe.
The Order of the Most Holy Trinity and of the Captives and the Rule of St. John de Matha were initially approved by Pope Innocent III in 1198 and fully approved in 1209.
He died in 1213 at age 53. He was canonized in 1666 by Pope Alexander VII.