Saint Isidore the Farmer

Isidore was born in Madrid around 1080 and started working the land as a boy. When the Almoravids conquered Madrid he moved to Torrelaguna, where he married Maria Toribia — who is honored among the blessed too, under the name María de la Cabeza. Then he went back to Madrid, to work the fields of a local landowner. That’s what he did his whole life: farmhand. He is one of the very few saints who was neither a religious, nor a noble, nor a martyr: just a man who plowed someone else’s land and went to Mass before dawn. And that’s exactly where the stories about him come from. His fellow workers complained to the master that he got to the fields late because he stopped in church; the master went to check and — tradition says — saw two angels plowing in his place. The other famous miracle is the one of the well: a child had fallen in, and at Isidore’s prayer the water rose until it brought him to the surface. He died in Madrid on May 15, 1130. Forty years later his body was moved into the city, and today it rests in the collegiate church that bears his name. Gregory XV proclaimed him a saint in 1622, in the same ceremony in which he canonized Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, Teresa of Ávila and Philip Neri — four giants and a farmer. He is the patron saint of Madrid and of farmers. If your name is Isidore, today is your name day.