In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Saint John Macias prayed a lot for the souls in purgatory. That is why someone has called him the
thief of purgatory. According to some reliable witnesses, God had revealed to him that towards
the end of his life he had freed one million four hundred thousand souls from purgatory.
He was a humble friar who spent the whole day in prayer, while fulfilling his duties as a porter.
He always had the rosary in his hand. And when Mass was celebrated in the church,
he tried to go whenever his obligations did not prevent him. And when he couldn't attend,
at the time of the consecration, when he heard the bell, he would kneel down and watch,
as if on television, the Mass that was being celebrated in the church.
Saint John Macias was born on March 2nd, 1585 in the small town of Ribera del Fresno.
Our saint was very penitent and offered his penances
and prayers for the salvation of sinners and the release of souls from purgatory.
His love for the Virgin Mary was extremely great. Saint John Macias always wore a
rosary around his neck and had another in his left hand and prayed it continuously.
Sometimes, after being mistreated by demons, the Sovereign Queen of angels, Mother of mercy and
consolation of the afflicted, Mary, Our Lady, with a serene and peaceful face appeared at his side,
surrounded by radiance, and encouraged and comforted him to resist the infernal furies.
There were days when food was scarce and Saint John Macias retired to his cell to pray to Our
Lady in her image of Bethlehem, which he had at the head of his cell. And speaking in her holy
image, Our Lady told him: “John, do not grieve, trust in the goodness and power of my Most Holy
Son Jesus Christ, who is pleased with your works. In the morning ask this person and the other one,
who will undoubtedly give to you." Obeying, the servant of God wrote to the people that the Lady
had pointed out to him and they came to him, so that he got out of the trouble he was in.
The saint had great devotion to the Salve Regina and went to it every day with his community,
when it was sung solemnly in the church after Compline at night. The day he could not attend due
to some inconvenience, he would kneel while they sang it, making himself present with his heart.
Saint John Macias was very devoted to praying the rosary. Apart from the one he prayed in
choir with the community of lay and religious in the chapel of the Lady of the Rosary, he prayed
during the day three other whole meditative parts, on his knees, which he applied to the
needs of the Church, for himself, for the people entrusted to him, and for the souls in purgatory.
The chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary was at night the continuous place of his prayer, rest from the
work of the day. When the saint finished the rosary of the Community, he stayed in it until
matins. He had in the tabernacle the Son and in the main niche in the image, the Mother with the
Son in her arms, with which he enjoyed everything he could desire and enjoy in heaven and on earth.
One day a great earthquake came. Doors and walls were shaking. All were voices of confusion and
everyone asked God for mercy. Saint John Macias wanted to run away like the others,
but he barely moved to get up from the ground, when the Queen of Mercy, Our Lady, speaking to him
through the mouth of her image, which is on the altar, lovingly told him: “Son Friar John,
why do you run away, being with me? Am I not here? Why are you afraid? When the image spoke to him,
so much light was emitted from her face that the chapel was filled with the splendors of heaven
and his humble soul with sovereign and ineffable joys.
One night in the year 1642, while the servant of God was in the chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary
of his convent at three o'clock in the morning, he saw the entire area of the chapel filled with
celestial lights. The sovereign Queen of heaven placed herself next to him on a resplendent throne
with her most holy Son Jesus, very small in her arms and, raising Him up three times, she made the
gesture of handing Him over with affection, more like a mother than a queen: “Here you have Him,
son, you want Him, receive Him because I am the one who gives Him to you, achieve your desires and
fulfill your desires.” Saint John Macias, between love and humility, began to fluctuate in that gulf
of lights, on the one hand love asked him to receive the invaluable gift, and on the other,
his humility dissuaded him. He excused himself with the Lady from receiving in his hands the
child God, but he stayed for several days with great joy and spiritual pleasure in his soul.
One of the main characteristics of the life of Saint John Macias
was his love and devotion to the souls in purgatory. Many witnesses certified in the
Process of beatification that they had never seen him without the rosary in his left hand.
He held it in his hand when he broke bread in the dining room,
and when asked who he was praying the rosary for, he always said it was for the souls in purgatory.
One night, while he was in church, he heard voices that called out to him from the chapel
across the street, calling him by his name. He raised his eyes and saw a large number of people
who asked him with tears and sighs to commend them to God and apply his prayers, fasts and penances
for them. They told him: “Servant of God, remember us, do not forget us; help us with your prayers
in the presence of God and pray to the divine Majesty to save us from these sorrows.”
The crowd was so great that it seemed like a great swarm of bees and, understanding that they were
the blessed souls in purgatory, he replied: "What can I, holy souls, do or ask for you,
being such a miserable man?" And from that moment the saint began to pray for them,
applying one of three rosaries to them, which on his knees, he prayed every day and twenty stations
to the Blessed Sacrament every day. Also the saint offered his Communions, with other works of piety,
fasting and penance. And many souls visited him, some giving thanks for the benefit they
had received, and others, who had not come, sought him out to pray for them.
And the servant of God multiplied his prayers, doubled his penances and continued his fasts.
Another night the saint was in prayer and heard on the altar a great clapping that shook the
chapel and then, immediately, a sad and pitiful sigh; and the saint later understood that it was
some soul in pain and asked him who he was. The soul replied that he was the soul of Friar John
Sayago that had come to make use of his prayers to God; that he have pity on him
and try to get him out of purgatory, because he was suffering the most atrocious torments.
The saint promised to do so and, that night and the two that followed, he applied all his interior
and exterior works to this brother, who was a lay religious of the same Order, who had just expired
in the convent of the Rosary in Lima, and it was at the same hour in which, taking the corpse
out of the infirmary, they had put it in the church to bury it the next day. Three days later,
being at the same altar, he saw a beautiful and resplendent vision come out that, little
by little, rose towards heaven, and the saint understood that it was the soul of the lay friar,
his brother, who, free from purgatory, passed from those sorrows to the rest of beatitude.
Saint John Macias once said that, according to a divine revelation,
he had achieved the liberation of one million four hundred thousand souls from purgatory.
Some priests of his Community testified to this number in the second process of beatification in
Lima, saying that they had read this number with certainty in the account of his death
that circulated throughout the Dominican province of John the Baptist of Peru. Especially, his old
confessor, Father Gonzalo, swore to have heard him say it and so did his Prior, Father Blas,
who assured: Every day he prayed the rosary for the souls in purgatory and until that hour,
when Friar John declared it to him, one million four hundred
thousand souls had come out of purgatory through his prayers, as I well remember.
Both Father Blas and Father Gonzalo had said the same thing in the first diocesan process.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.