IFTTT Autopost 
John Kostistik was born on June 29, 1556 in Zazo in Walacchia, Romania. John’s family had a successful farm, and the family was known for giving what they could to the poor. John’s mother, for example, baked bread from extra grain for those who were hungry, and John and his grandfather chopped wood for the poor.
When he was 18 years old, John left Romania, at his mother’s prompting, to seek a life for himself in southern Italy.
John’s first four years in Italy did not go very well for the young man, so someone told him he should go to Naples to try his luck there.
In Naples, John joined the Capuchin Franciscan Order. He was given the habit and name of Jeremiah in 1578. One year later, he made his profession.
After making his profession, Brother Jeremiah began nursing the sick. This he did until he died. Although he cared for the sick in various friaries, in 1585 he was assigned to the infirmary of the Monastery of St. Ephrem the Old in Naples. There, he nursed the sick not only of his religious community, but ill people of the city.
Brother Jeremiah became known throughout Naples for his holiness and his compassion for the suffering. For Jeremiah, his patients were simply part of the “suffering Jesus.” Often, Jeremiah would be found praying in the middle of the night in spite of having put in full days of nursing.
Brother Jeremiah also developed an herbal preparation to cover the stench of the rotting flesh of lepers for whom he cared. Soon, people began talking about miraculous cures that came from Jeremy’s nursing care and prayers.
In addition to basic biophysical nursing, Brother Jeremiah was apparently an excellent psychiatric nurse. Once, for example, he became the private duty nurse of a friar that would become so violent, that he drove everyone else away. Jeremiah cared for that friar for 5 years. He called this psychiatric nursing experience his “recreation.”
Jeremiah also developed a reputation for living Franciscan poverty above and beyond what was reasonably expected. He spent 35 years, for example, wearing the same habit, and he would often give his food away to those in need.
On February 26, 1625, a member of the Naples royal court, John Avales, was gravely ill and asked Brother Jeremiah to make a nursing visit. Jeremiah, then 69 years old, did not hesitate. Unfortunately, the place he had to walk was 7 miles away. Nevertheless, Jeremiah made the journey on a cold, wet winter’s night, and this journey brought on double pneumonia from which he never recovered.
Brother Jeremiah died on March 5, 1625.
Pope St. John Paul II beatified Jeremy on October 30, 1983, the first Romanian to be beatified. Blessed Jeremiah’s feast day is October 10.
