St. Isidore the Farmer, patron of Madrid, was born of poor parents and named for St. Isidore, the Archbishop of Seville.
As
a young man he entered the service of John de Vergas, a wealthy
resident of Madrid, as a farm laborer and worked for the same employer
his whole life.
Isidore married a young woman as poor and as
virtuous as himself, but after the early death of an only son, they
decided to serve God in perfect continence. A shining example of
holiness in ordinary, day-to-day living, Isidore would wake early,
attend Mass, and then spend the day at the plow, engrossed entirely in
prayer and contemplation. Many marvels accompanied his daily grind and
he was granted heavenly visions and conversed familiarly with the
angels.
He was a great almsgiver, at times sharing most of his
meals with the needy. He also loved animals. Once, on a snowy winter
day, as he carried a sack of corn to be ground at the mill, he spied
birds on a branch, hopeless of a meal. Despite the jeers of his
companions, he poured half of his corn on the ground. On arriving at the
mill, not only was his sack full, but the corn yielded double the
amount of flour.
Isidore died on May 15, 1130. His wife survived
him by several years and is also honored as a saint. Countless miracles
followed the translation of Isidore’s body to a more honorable shrine,
and devotion to the saint spread like wildfire.
In 1211 he is
said to have appeared to King Alphonsus of Castille then fighting the
Moors in the pass of Navas de Tolosa, and to have shown him a hidden
path, which allowed the king and his army to surprise the enemy and
carry the day.
Devoted to the saint, the Spanish Royal Family supported Isidore’s cause for canonization, and he was declared a saint in 1622.
In 1947 St. Isidore the Farmer was declared the patron of the National Rural Conference of the United States.
Saturday, May 15, 2021
St. Isidore the Farmer
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