Josip Tomičić

On June 26, 1919, Josip was welcomed into the Capuchin convent in Varaždin. He began his novitiate there on December 27, 1919, under the name Brother Ante (Anthony). However, finding the convent life too comfortable compared to his ideal of austerity and solitude inspired by Saint John the Baptist, he left the novitiate in the spring of 1920. After two months of wandering and fruitless searching, on the advice of his confessor, he rejoined the Capuchin novitiate on November 20, 1920. He took his first vows one year later, in 1921. Brother Ante was first sent as a cook to the convent in Karlobag in May 1922, before returning to Varaždin in October of the same year as a questor brother. In February 1923, he was transferred to Split, to the sanctuary of Our Lady of Pojišan (Svetište Gospe od Pojišana), where he served as sacristan and questor. It was in this sanctuary that he took his perpetual vows on February 11, 1925. In 1926, he was sent to Dubrovnik, where he spent ten years begging to support the needs of his community and finance the reconstruction of convents. His ministry as a questor led him to travel on foot through many regions of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Vojvodina for more than twenty years. He regularly endured humiliations and mockery, which he accepted with patience and humility. After serving in Varaždin and Zagreb (notably at the Saint Michael parish in Dubrava during the Second World War), he was transferred on September 5, 1947, to the Capuchin convent in Rijeka. He would spend the last thirty-four years of his life there, serving as the convent porter and sacristan of the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes (crkva Gospe Lurdske).

Under the Yugoslav communist regime, wearing a religious habit in public provoked intense hostility and insults. Despite the pressure and public abuse, Brother Ante categorically refused to remove his saio (Capuchin habit). He faced these daily trials with great fortitude and an unwavering trust in God. At the porter's lodge of the Rijeka friary, he became an essential and beloved figure to the local population. He welcomed believers, pilgrims, the poor, and atheists with the same kindness, always showing himself attentive to their suffering. Starting in March 1979, Brother Ante was afflicted by a serious illness (cancer). He underwent nine surgical procedures and lived through this period as a true Way of the Cross, abandoning himself totally to the divine will. He passed away peacefully on November 25, 1981, at the Rijeka friary. During his funeral, the crowd and his confreres hailed him as "the miracle of the city of Rijeka."

The beatification process for Brother Ante Josip Tomičić officially began at the diocesan level on July 12, 2005, in Rijeka. On June 5, 2006, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints issued the Nihil obstat decree. The diocesan inquiry into his life and virtues was solemnly closed on February 9, 2014. The legal validity of the diocesan inquiry was recognized by a decree on January 15, 2016. After the examination of the Positio by the theological consultants (January 19, 2023) and then by the cardinals and bishops (February 27, 2024), Pope Francis authorized, on March 14, 2024, the promulgation of the decree recognizing his heroic virtues. Brother Ante Josip Tomičić was then declared venerable.

The spirituality of Brother Ante is deeply marked by Franciscan humility, poverty, and an intense life of prayer, particularly Eucharistic adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. He also held an extraordinary filial devotion to the Virgin Mary, considering himself honored to be the guardian of her house as the sacristan of the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes in Rijeka. On April 3, 1997, his remains were transferred from the Kozala cemetery to the crypt of the Capuchin church in Rijeka, where many faithful come to pray and seek his intercession.