BRAINTREE -- Jo Joy was a hired killer, or so he said.

He had been married four times. His wives' names were tattooed on his chest. On his back were the painful sores that Brother Francis Joseph Gillen, founder of the Brothers of Mercy of St. John of God, had been called in to treat.

Before establishing his hospice in Bulacan Province of the Philippines, Brother Francis came directly to patients like Jo Joy. Many of them lived in one-room shacks built on stilts, with no electricity or running water. Nothing from Brother Francis's childhood in Charlestown, or his time with the Brothers of St. John of God in Gloucester, California, Rome, and the Holy Land, could have prepared him for the poverty he witnessed in the Philippines. Brother Francis would climb the wobbly ladder into Jo Joy's home, treat him, and listen to his stories. Shortly before Jo Joy's death, Brother Francis convinced him to go to confession.

"He reminds me of the good thief who after a long, bad life won paradise in the nick of time," Brother Francis wrote in "I'll Tell You a Story," a collection of anecdotes from his vocation.

He and his congregation fed, clothed, and housed homeless men and women with severe mental illnesses. In "I'll Tell You a Story," he recalls patients such as Toa, who suffered from seizures and enjoyed practical jokes. During his 11-year stay at the hospice, the brothers were the only family he had.

Brother Francis died in 2017 at age 87, after 71 years in religious life. In the brutal humidity of a Philippine summer, over 300 people followed his casket for a three-mile procession from the church to the cemetery. He lay in state and was visited by throngs of admirers who considered him a saint. His casket was white, a color reserved for the holiest men and women.

He hoped not to be buried in a cemetery but at the hospice, spending eternity with his patients. The Brothers of Mercy took his casket to the hospice so his patients could pay their respects. Many didn't understand death and, had they not seen his body, would have gone looking for him. Also at the funeral was Irene Moffat, Brother Francis's sister and a proud "townie." She had only seen her brother twice in the last 20 years of his life.

"The Philippines, it wasn't the Ritz, let's put it that way," said Moffat, now 90. "But he loved it. He absolutely thrived on it."

On Aug. 1, the Brothers of Mercy announced that they are seeking personal testimonies about Brother Francis, in hopes that a cause for canonization will be opened for him.

"He lived a holy life," said Brother of Mercy Prior Raymond Marquez. "Every time, you see him praying, and always at peace, even in the time of difficulty, in the time of pain."

The Brothers of Mercy now care for 72 men and 18 women. Brother Raymond believes it is the only psychiatric hospice for homeless patients in the Philippines.

"More than ever, we need now the prayers of Brother Francis because of his concern for the mental health problems," he said.

The patients often had violent outbursts. Brother Francis asked them to pray and trust in God. Most were destitute, but some came from privileged upbringings, abandoned as disgraces to their families.

"He would go out literally in the street and pick them up and bring them in, feed them," Moffat said.

If anyone asked her why her brother should be a saint, she would reply, "Because he is."

On the wall of her Norwell apartment is a painting of Brother Francis. She also keeps a manila folder stuffed with artifacts of her brother's life -- documents, newspaper clippings, photos, testimonies and letters from her brother, who always addressed her as "dearest."

Photos of Brother Francis show a thin, meek-looking man with a long face and prominent ears. One shows him feeding a patient. Another withered, undated photo shows him with Mother Teresa.

Brother Francis was born George Carey Gillen in 1930. The Gillens were as Charlestown as it gets. His mother Mary Gillen was "Miss Bunker Hill." His brother Bob Gillen was the 59th commander of the U.S.S. Constitution. The family lived in a triple-decker by St. Mary Parish and School, where Brother Francis's devotion was nurtured.

"He was always holy," recalled his younger brother Mo Gillen, now 87 and still living in Charlestown.

Brother Francis once stopped Bob Gillen from receiving Communion at Mass because he overheard him getting a glass of water the night before. At age 12, he would collect medicine for the Little Sisters of the Poor. At 14, he cut up his mother and sister's clothes to dress a statue of the Infant of Prague.

"They both proceeded to kill him for it," Moffat joked.

Their father, George Gillen, severely disapproved of his teenage son entering religious life. Around that time, Nell, a "feisty old maid" and family friend who lived across the street, was on her deathbed. She asked to meet with George Gillen privately. Moffat has no idea what she told him, but it convinced him to let his son join the Brothers of St. John of God. Brother Francis was 16 when he left high school to enter the order in Gloucester. He always believed that, like Christ, he would die in his 30s.

"Thank God he didn't," Moffat said.

Decades later he was in Rome, where he cared for refugees from Africa and the Soviet Union. A Filipino doctor told him that the Brothers of St. John of God were needed in his country. In 1989, he was told to return to Rome. He wrote to the Father General that he needed to stay and live a life of "greater poverty, stricter observance, and gratuitous service to the poor-sick and the abandoned."

"He requested leave from a pretty plush job to go to the Philippines," Mo Gillen said, adding that his brother "wanted to help the needy, the ones that nobody would help, and he did that all his life."

"He had his teeth knocked out by a patient, and he just went back about," said Mo Gillen's daughter Kelly Gillen Forbes.

They last saw Brother Francis in 1988, the last time he returned to Boston. Along with his family, he made sure to visit the sick. Gillen Forbes was 19. She remembers Brother Francis's sense of humor and how he would put his hand on her head and pray over her.

"Even as a little kid, you felt that it was special, that he was special," she said. "There was something very calming and just holy. I don't know any other way to say it."

In Bulacan, Brother Francis established his own congregation, also dedicated to St. John of God. He moved from one abandoned, vermin-infested building to another until donors in the U.S. helped him build a hospice in Bocaue in 1992. A hospice for women was later built in Bustos, staffed by the Daughters of Mercy, which Brother Francis also founded.

He endured typhoons, financial hardship, and even the theft of the Eucharist from the tabernacle but kept his generous spirit. He once gave away the Brothers' entire savings -- 4,000 pesos -- to a woman in need. The Brothers received a donation of 8,000 pesos later that day. He seldom bought his own clothing, instead wearing the clothes of deceased patients and Brothers of Mercy to honor their memory.

"He's very, very calm, always is smiling, and he tried to make patients happy," Brother Raymond said. "In his very simple life, that makes me admire and become a Brother of Mercy."

As a newcomer to the congregation, Brother Raymond was exhausted and prayed before the Blessed Sacrament in hopes of going home. He didn't tell Brother Francis his doubts, but later that night, he appeared to Brother Raymond and showed him a crack on the hospice's cement floor. It was in the shape of a cross.

"Don't lose your hope," he said.

Brother Raymond felt God speaking to him at that moment.

Those who wish to share their memories of Brother Francis should contact the Brothers of Mercy at brothersofmercy.fm1989@gmail.com.