Feast day: May 17

St. Paschal Baylon

Religious, Friar · 1540–1592

Patron of Eucharistic congresses

A Spanish shepherd boy who became a Franciscan lay brother, served as a humble doorkeeper, and was renowned for his ardent devotion before the Blessed Sacrament.

Paschal Baylon was born in 1540 to a poor peasant family in Aragon, Spain, and spent his boyhood as a shepherd, watching his family's flocks. Largely self-taught, he learned to read in order to follow prayer books, and developed even as a youth an intense devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, the Eucharist.

At about twenty he entered the Franciscans of the strict Alcantarine reform as a lay brother, choosing to remain a simple brother — porter, cook, doorkeeper — rather than seek the priesthood. Humble, cheerful, and austere, he was beloved for his charity to the poor who came to the friary gate.

Above all he was a man of the Eucharist. He would spend hours in adoration before the tabernacle, and once, sent on a journey through France, he is said to have defended the doctrine of Christ's Real Presence so boldly against Protestant opponents that he narrowly escaped death at the hands of a mob.

He died on Pentecost in 1592, reportedly at the very moment of the elevation of the Host at Mass. Canonized in 1690, he was later declared by Pope Leo XIII the heavenly patron of all Eucharistic congresses and confraternities — the shepherd boy who became the saint of the Blessed Sacrament.

A self-taught shepherd who learned to read so he could study the faith, he was named patron of all Eucharistic congresses and societies.

Image: artist unknown (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/11512a.htm