[Rank]
S. Joannis Baptistae de Rossi Confessoris;;Duplex;;3;;vide C5

[Rule]
vide C5;
9 lectiones

[Oratio]
O God, Who didst beautify Thine holy Confessor John Baptist with the graces of love and longsuffering in preaching Thy Gospel unto the poor, grant, we beseech Thee, unto us who honour his godly and worthy life the grace to follow after the example of his good works.
$Per Dominum

[Lectio4]
John Baptist de Rossi was born of a respectable family at Voltaggio, in the diocese of Genoa, (on the 22nd February 1698,) and, as a child, was the wonder of all on account of his gentleness and godliness. At thirteen years of age the good providence of God sent him to Rome, where he was destined afterwards to do the work of an Apostle. As a student at the Roman College he was distinguished both for his talents and his goodness. He was very anxious that his comrades should attend regularly the meetings of the guild of the Blessed Virgin, should minister to the sick in hospitals, and should be diverted from objectionable recreations by harmless amusements; at the same time he stirred up the more sluggish by his words on heavenly things, and from that time got the surname of Apostle. He fell seriously ill on account of his severe treatment of his own body, and was therefore obliged to relax somewhat the. earnestness of his studies. This he was accustomed to say was God's dealing with him that he might not be puffed up with knowledge, and so seek his own rather than those things which are JESUS Christ's. After joining the clergy he went through the sacred training in the College of St. Thomas, where he went from strength to strength, and then with deep joy of soul received the Priesthood. He so chose the Lord to be his own inheritance, that he bound himself by a special vow not to accept any church benefice, even if it were offered him quite unsolicited, unless he were compelled to do so by obedience.

[Lectio5]
After he became a Priest, he devoted himself entirely to the spiritual health of his neighbours, which had been his care from his youth up. By the ministry of the Word, with wonderful gentleness he stirred up to the love of good alike ecclesiastics, holy virgins, citizens, prisoners, and the whole lowest class of the population. He spent several hours every day in hearing the confessions of the illiterate, and visited in their homes or in hospitals the sick, and especially the consumptive, of whom he spoke as his own. He hurried about the city, and took part in countless good works, but was especially careful in visiting the hospital of St. Galla, to help in every way he could the poor, whom he held as a special object of affection. From his fifteenth year he was joined to a body of Priests whose special work was preaching to the poor, with them he learnt his apostleship, and he arranged and disseminated their labours. The same pity caused him to spend his modest substance in relieving the necessities of the needy. He left behind him abiding fruits of his unwearied zeal for the instruction of servants, wanderers, and the illiterate classes for the holy celebration of Easter, an home of refuge for the safe keeping of the lost women who wander through the city by night, but above all the earnestness for the salvation of souls aroused among the clergy.

[Lectio6]
The brightness of his love of God shone forth in his face while he was officiating, and he could not speak of His goodness without tears. He was forced, out of obedience, to accept a Canon's stall in the collegiate church of St. Mary in Cosmedin, and during the psalmody he seemed to become entranced. He was very careful as to the sacred ceremonies, sought the beauty of the house of God, and freely contributed of his means to that object. He communicated to others his own love towards the Mother of God, and he promoted her worship in his own church, where he instituted a daily sermon in her honour, in addition to her Office. He sought to fill himself with the spirit of Philip Neri, and while he was devout towards all the dwellers in heaven, he promoted increased honour for the princes of the Apostles; he was constant in prayer and in every good work, and rich in gifts of grace. At length in the hospital called that of the Most Holy Trinity, whither he had withdrawn to live along with the Priests, broken down by work, he reached the end of life, and when he had received the sacraments of the Church, and again exhorted to works of charity and to the care of the poor, he died in the Lord's kiss upon the 23rd day of May, in the year of Christ 1764, and of his own age the sixty-sixth. God was pleased to mark by miracles so remarkable an example of priestly grace, and when these had been duly proved, the Supreme Pontiff Pius IX., upon the 13th day of May, in the year i860, ascribed to him the honours paid to the blessed in heaven. As new signs still distinguished him, Leo XIII., upon the 8th day of December, in the year 1 881, enrolled him among the Saints.