Saint Isidore the Farmer

Isidore was born in Madrid around 1080 to poor parents and spent his life as a hired laborer on the estate of a landowner named Juan de Vargas. He married María Toribia, honored today as Saint María de la Cabeza, and they had a son. Each morning Isidore went to Mass before going to the fields, and he prayed as he worked.

When fellow workers complained that he arrived late, the legend says, his master went to watch and saw angels plowing beside Isidore, so that his work was never behind. Many stories tell of his generosity: he shared his meals with the poor, and once scattered grain for hungry birds in winter, only to find his sack full again. He died around 1130, and his body, found incorrupt, was venerated in Madrid. He was canonized on March 12, 1622, together with Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, Teresa of Avila and Philip Neri.

Madrid celebrates its patron with the Fiestas de San Isidro: madrileños in traditional dress dance the chotis, drink water from the saint's spring at the Pradera de San Isidro and eat rosquillas listas y tontas. In Latin America, from Mexico to Peru and Venezuela, farmers bring oxen, tractors, seeds and animals to be blessed, and processions carry his image through the fields. In the United States he is patron of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference.