Father Joseph

was from a very good family and was an excellent priest of the Diocese, rising to become Vicar General.

It wasn’t enough. He gave away his inheritance and left the country.

He would be concerned about the most neglected of society: poor children and victims of deadly contagious diseases. He cared for the sick and opened free schools for the children.

He started his own religious order to provide manpower for educating poor children. He faced much opposition, even from within the order he himself founded, and the order was driven out of existence (only to come back again – today his order, the Piarist Fathers number over 1400 in 32 countries around the world).

St. Joseph Calasanz died in Rome on this very day in 1648 at the age of 91.