St. John of Kanty

Their story

John was born in 1390 in the Polish town of Kanty (Kęty), and he is also known as John Cantius. He studied at the University of Kraków, was ordained a priest, and spent most of his life there as a professor of theology and Sacred Scripture. He was respected as a scholar, but he was even more admired for his holiness and humility. John lived very simply, slept little, ate no meat, and gave nearly everything he had to the poor. He is said to have given the shoes off his feet and the coat off his back to people in need. He made pilgrimages on foot to Jerusalem and several times to Rome. A well-known story tells that robbers once stopped him on the road and asked if he had any more money. He said no, and they let him go. Then he remembered some gold coins sewn into his cloak. He ran after the robbers to give them the coins, since he had told them something untrue. The astonished thieves returned everything they had taken. John died on Christmas Eve in 1473. He was canonized in 1767 and is a patron of Poland and Lithuania.