From: rich <richarra@gmail.com>

May 15th - St. Isidore the Farmer
(c. 1070-1130)

Not all the saints have been =E2=80=9Cof distinguished family=E2=80=9D. Thu=
s, the
parents of St. Isidore the Farmer (or =E2=80=9Cthe Laborer=E2=80=9D) were p= oor, and he
himself was poor. Yet he became venerated by kings, chosen as the
protector of Madrid, and invoked as patron of U.S. farmers.

He was a native of Madrid, named after the great 7th-century
archbishop of Seville, St. Isidore. If his parents were unable to
afford school for him, they at least taught him well their own love
for prayer and hatred for sin.

As soon as he was big enough to handle a hoe, Isidore was sent to work
for Juan de Vergas, a well-to-do farmer who raised crops outside of
Madrid. He would spend all his life in the employ of this one man.
Humdrum? Yes. But it was within this context that Isidore tried to
achieve, and did achieve, the holiness to which we are all called.
Eventually he met and married Maria Torribia, a young woman whose
ideals matched his own. When their one child died early, Isidore and
Torribia agreed to take private vows of continence.

Prayerfulness and generosity were the two characteristics that this
farm-hand developed in particular. It is a sign of his great
popularity that many legends developed about his life: the legends
simply underline his reputation for these two virtues.

First, his devotion to prayer. Each morning before work he would go to
church. One day, however, his fellow workers complained to Vergas that
by tarrying too long at church Isidore was shirking his morning labor.
The boss determined to check this report himself. Next day, Isidore
did indeed come later than the others. But just as Vergas was about to
scold him, he noticed that when Isidore started to plow, there were
two other plowmen on either side of him, guiding snow-white oxen not
of his own herd. Angels, it seems had been assisting the saint so
that, even though he stayed a little longer at church, his portion of
the work done was tripled.

It was usually in matters connected with his generosity that Isidore
became noted even during life for miracles. He was accustomed to share
his own scanty meals with the poor. One day when he came to attend a
dinner given by his religious confraternity, he picked up a crowd of
beggars en route from the church. Those in charge of the dinner were a
little annoyed. =E2=80=9CWe can't possibly feed all of these,=E2=80=
=9D they said. =E2=80=9CWe
have only one portion left--the one we have been saving for you.=E2=80=9D =E2=80=9CThat will be enough,=E2=80=9D the saint replied. And it was. Multi= plied
miraculously, Isidore's dinner fed the whole group of unexpected
guests.

Revered during his life, Isidore became immensely popular as a
wonderworker after his death. Even the royal family joined his
admirers. He was said to have appeared in a vision to King Alfonso of
Castile in 1211 to show him a secret path by which to overtake and
conquer a Moorish army. King Philip II (1598-1621) was cured or a
mortal fever when the incorrupt, mummified body of the saint was
brought from its shrine into his sickroom. In 1622, at the urging of
the royal family, the Madrid farmer was at length canonized. It was at
the same ceremony in which St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Francis Xavier,
St. Teresa of Avila and St. Philip Neri of Rome were declared saints.

In the Spanish new world, too, St. Isidore became a beloved figure
especially among Indians and other agriculturists. In our own country,
the National Catholic Rural Life Conference adopted him as patron of
U.S. farmers, and got permission for the American Church to celebrate
his feast May 15th.

St. Isidore's wife also came to be recognized as a saint: St. Maria
Torribia De Cabeza. Both of them teach an important lesson to all of
us. We can become saints in whatever state of life God assigns to us.
Holiness simply means doing His will where we are.
=E2=80=93Father Bob


Saint Quote:
And when I hear it said that God is good and He will pardon us, and
then see that men cease not from evil-doing, oh, how it grieves me!
The infinite goodness with which God communicates with us, sinners as
we are, should constantly make us love and serve Him better; but we,
on the contrary, instead of seeing in his goodness an obligation to
please Him, convert it into an excuse for sin which will of a
certainty lead in the end to our deeper condemnation.
--St. Catherine of Genoa

Bible Quote:
: "I was gazing into the visions of the night, when I saw, coming on
the clouds of heaven, as it were a son of man. He came to the One most venerable and was led into his presence. On him was conferred rule,
honor and kingship, and all peoples, nations and languages became his
servants. His rule is an everlasting rule which will never pass away,
and his kingship will never come to an end." Daniel 7:13-14

<><><><>
PRAYER

O God, Who hast doomed all men to die,
but hast concealed from all the hour of their death,
grant that I may pass my days
in the practice of holiness and justice,
and that I may deserve to quit this world
in the peace of a good conscience,
and in the embraces of Thy love.
Through Christ our Lord.

Amen.
--- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2
* Origin: News Gate @ Net396 -Huntsville, AL - USA (1:396/4)