Giovannangelo Porro

Giovannangelo Porro was born in 1451 at Barlassina (also associated with Seveso) in the Duchy of Milan, son of the nobleman Protasio Porro and Franceschina da Guenzate, one of three brothers. After his father's death in 1468 he entered the Order of the Servants of Mary in Milan about the age of eighteen, beginning the novitiate and making religious profession on 20 December 1470.

In the summer of 1474 he was sent to the convent of the Annunziata in Florence, where he completed his studies and was ordained a priest. Drawn to silence and prayer, around 1477 he withdrew to the hermitage of Monte Senario, cradle of the Servite Order, and remained there for many years in meditation, fasting, and penitential self-mortification. From about 1484 to 1487 he returned to Florence to form young novices; he was later named prior of the hermitage of Monte Senario and then prior of the hermitage of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Chianti. Toward the end of 1488, while unwell, he went again to the Basilica of the Annunciation in Florence; after recuperation he spent some months as convent prior in Chianti.

As his reputation for holiness spread in Florence and the surrounding countryside, he preferred to return to Lombardy, where he was less known. Around 1495 he came back to Milan, remaining briefly at the Cavacuta convent in Lodi, and was named prior of the Milanese convent. Seeing that the young lacked religious instruction, he went through the streets teaching catechism to children. He was noted for his love of nature and for a life ordered wholly to inward prayer and penance despite fragile health.

He died in Milan on 23 October 1505 at about fifty-four years of age. His tomb at once became a place of pilgrimage where miracles were reported. Popular veneration arose spontaneously and flourished after 1511; his name already appeared in Servite catalogues of the blessed. Pope Clement XII confirmed the cult on 15 July 1737 (with feast on 23 October); the cause was further advanced and Pope Clement XIII declared him Blessed on 23 December 1767. His body, long kept incorrupt, is now preserved in the Basilica of San Carlo al Corso in Milan, on the site of the former Servite convent, and—exceptionally in the Milanese churches—is exposed above the altar. Saint Charles Borromeo's devotion and the healing attributed to Porro greatly strengthened the cult in the Ambrosian Church.

May Blessed Giovannangelo Porro intercede for us, that we may practice silent prayer and humble care for the young and the sick today.