Important data about brother Jeremiah

Birthday: 29 june, 1556, Tzazo, Romania.
Liturgical Memory: 8 May.
Memory of the beatification: 30 October. (This year, 2008, we celebrate 25 years from this event, with special liturgy at the Sanctuary dedicated to him, from Onesti, Romania. More info: http://www.ofmcapucini.ro/
Death: 5 March 1625, on the way back to the convent, after having cured someone.

Life of Brother Jeremiah(1)

Written by Br. Francesco Saverio Toppi in 1983, in occasion of the beatification.

Brother Jeremiah was born in "Little Walachia", a region coresponding to the actual Moldavia, in Romania. (accesing the following link you will find a map in order to make an idea about the region: http://www.celendo.ro/HartiRegiuniIstorice/Moldova_Regiune_Istorica_Romania_Celendo.jpg).

At the age of 18 he left his country to go to Italy, where he lived untill death.

He obeyed God's voice, who adressed to him, as well as to Abraham, through some kind of internal experience, stimulated by the convergence of some external signs.

He told his brothers, several times, that he had been determined to make this step by his mother's words abotu Italy: a special country, where there were god cristians, where all tme friars were saints and where there was the pope, Crist's curate on earth.

He also told that, one day, going to the market place to sell the fruit from his lands, he met an old beggar to whom offered his victual and who told him: You will travel beyond the mountains, towards south, in the country called Italy. You will have a long journey and you will have to suffer a lot. But don't worry, because nothing bad is going to happen to you. Arrived at the end of your journey, you will get a job near a very great master, you will serve him with a great love and you will be rewarded with great generosity.

He was a young peasant, he didn't know neither reading, nor writting; he was only speaking his vernacular, he didn't know the way to go, he was devoid of any middle or any clear plan, at the moment of leaving his country and family to go to Italy.

Did he leave at his mother's sugestion?

Did he decided this after the prediction of the old beggar? We consider that, because of his temper, modelated in the field working, in a healthy realism, this was a too vague and insufficient indication for a so important choice.

The one who gave him so much power of decision and so much ability of resistance couldn't be other than God. He talked him inj the heart, using his mother's words and the old beggar's ones. It was about a decision arrisen from a great love and he has done all his best to realise it.

Prayer for the own people

Blessed Jeremiah, through the miracles you have done in life and after death, you brought honor and exaltation to God; we are begging you with humility, turn your look towards us and intercede for us the wishes we are all asking you now... (each one can add his intention of prayer).
Blessed Jeremiah, show, among our people too, your wondrous power that you have received from God: the power of healing the ill, of bringing comfort to the sorrowful and of leading to convertion the sinners.
We assign our poor prayers to your intercession and we are waiting faithfully and obediently God's mercy with us, with our relatives, with our entire people and with those that mostly need it. Amen.