Paschal Baylon

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Saint Paschal Baylon

"Seraph of the Eucharist"
Born	1540, kingdom of Aragon
Died	17 May 1592
Venerated in	Roman Catholicism
Beatified	1618 by Paul V
Canonized	October 16, 1690 by Alexander VIII
Major shrine	Royal Chapel in Villareal
Feast	May 17
Patronage	Patron of Eucharistic congresses and Eucharistic associations
Saints Portal

Saint Paschal Baylon (or Pascal Baylon) (24 May 1540–17 May 1592) was a Spanish friar and is a saint in the Roman Catholic Church.

He was born at Torre-Hermosa, in the Kingdom of Aragon, on 24 May 1540, on the Feast of Pentecost, called in Spain "the Pasch of the Holy Ghost", whence the name Paschal. His parents, Martin Baylon and Elizabeth Jubera, were poor peasants. He spent his youth as a shepherd. He would carry a book with him and beg any passerby to teach him the alphabet. He thereby learned to read, and as he toiled in the fields he would read religious books.

In around 1564, he joined the Reformed Franciscan Order (Alcantarine Reform) as a lay brother. He chose to live in poor monasteries because, he said, "I was born poor and am resolved to die in poverty and penance." He lived a life of poverty and prayer, even praying while working, for the rest of his life.

He was a mystic and contemplative, and he had frequent ecstatic visions. He would spend the night before the altar in prayer many nights. At the same time, he sought to downplay any glory that might come from this piety. He died on May 17, which is his current feast day, in 1592. His tomb in the Royal Chapel in Villareal in the old province of Valencia, where he died, immediately became an object of pilgrimage. Beatified by Paul V in 1618, he was canonized by Alexander VIII on October 16, 1690. The saint is usually depicted in adoration before a vision of the Host.

Paschal Baylon was enlisted in the Church's struggle against Modernism, part of which was through increasing devotion towards the Sacrament of the Eucharist; Pope Leo XIII^[1] proclaimed Saint Paschal Baylon, the "seraph of the Eucharist", Patron of eucharistic congresses and all contemporary and future eucharistic associations.

During the Red Terror at the time of the Spanish Civil War his grave was desacrated and his relics burned by anticlerical leftists. ^[2]

[edit] Notes

^ in the Apostolic Brief Providentissimus Deus, November 28, 1897
^ Butler, Alban, David Hugh Farmer and Paul Burns Butler's Lives of the Saints p. 93 (1997 Continuum International Publishing Group) ISBN 0860122549