The year 2025 marks the 475th anniversary of the death of Saint John of God (8 March 1550). The testimonies gathered during the beatification process hand down to history a moment of extraordinary spiritual intensity, one that carries the flavour of an “inverted Christmas”: not the physical birth of Christ, but the eternal birth of a man fully surrendered to his Lord.

Witnesses report that John of God died on his knees, in an attitude of adoration, holding a Crucifix in his hands. His last words — “Jesus, Jesus, into your hands I commend my spirit” — echo the Gospel and reveal a life consumed in merciful love for the poor. According to various testimonies, a sound like people entering and leaving the room was heard — likely angels — accompanied by fragrance and celestial harmonies that lingered for days. The city of Granada flocked to see him, so much so that it became necessary to move the body to prevent the removal of relics.

From Bethlehem to Granada: two adorations that meet. In Bethlehem, the shepherds knelt before a helpless Child, sign of God’s tenderness made poor; and on his deathbed, John of God knelt before the Crucified One, the supreme sign of Love that gives life. In both cases, the attitude is the same: adoration, wonder, total surrender.

For John of God, the Crucifix was not only the memory of the Passion but the Son of Mary who came into the world out of love. His devotion to the suffering Christ springs from the very mystery we contemplate at Christmas: God who draws near to the least, who lets himself be touched, who bears human misery upon himself. The Christian Christmas tradition proclaims that the Word became flesh to “bring good news to the poor.” This is what Saint John of God embodied radically during his twelve years of mission in Granada. In adoring the Crucified at the moment of his death, he adored the same Christ laid in the manger: fragile and needy. For this reason, his death can be read as an “inverted Christmas”: not the birth of God into history, but the definitive birth of John of God into God.

On this 475th anniversary, his example invites the Hospitaller Family — and each of us — to let ourselves be touched by the fragility of others, to unite the tenderness of Christmas with the mercy of the Cross, and to find in the adoration of the Child and the Crucified the source of concrete charity.