Saint Didacus of Alcalá

Diego was born around 1400 in San Nicolás del Puerto, in Andalusia, Spain, and lived as a hermit before becoming a Franciscan lay brother. He served as a missionary in the Canary Islands and was even put in charge of a friary there, though he was not a priest. In 1450 he went to Rome for the jubilee and spent months nursing the sick during an epidemic at the Aracoeli friary. He spent his last years as porter at Alcalá de Henares, famous for his charity to the poor, and died there in 1463; he was canonized in 1588.

According to tradition, when he was caught carrying bread from the friary to the poor, the bread in his habit turned into roses. The Spanish explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno named San Diego Bay for him in 1602, and in 1769 Saint Junípero Serra founded there Mission San Diego de Alcalá, the first mission in California.