According to the 1962 Missal of Bl. John XXIII the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, today is the feast of St. Thomas of Villanova, a great saint of the Spanish Renaissance and a good friend of Emperor Charles V. He was a man of infinite charity in word and deed and lived as frugally as the poor who benefited by his unstinted almsgiving. While provincial of his order in Castile, he sent the first group of Augustinians to the Americas. Establishing themselves in Mexico, they were integral in the growth of Christianity in the New World. This date is also the commemoration of Sts. Maurice and Companions, Christian soldiers who were massacred in Switzerland because they refused to offer sacrifices to pagan gods.
St. Thomas of Villanova
St. Thomas was born in Spain in 1488, and inherited a special love toward the poor from his parents; he often gave away his very clothes. After the death of his father and mother, he used his inheritance to sustain poor virgins. He became a lecturer in the higher schools at Alcala, entered the order of the Hermits of St. Augustine in 1516 at Villanova, and acted as court preacher to Charles V. Against his will he was made archbishop of Valencia (1544), then exercised the office as a zealous shepherd of souls and a great friend of the poor. The bed in which he died was borrowed back from the one to whom he had given it as alms shortly before. During the sixteenth century he was called the “apostle of the Spaniards.” Excerpted from The Church’s Year of Grace, Pius Parsch.
Symbols: open purse; wallet; bishop’s mitre; book; bag of coins.
St. Thomas of Villanova
According to the 1962 Missal of Bl. John XXIII the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, today is the feast of St. Thomas of Villanova, a great saint of the Spanish Renaissance and a good friend of Emperor Charles V. He was a man of infinite charity in word and deed and lived as frugally as the poor who benefited by his unstinted almsgiving. While provincial of his order in Castile, he sent the first group of Augustinians to the Americas. Establishing themselves in Mexico, they were integral in the growth of Christianity in the New World. This date is also the commemoration of Sts. Maurice and Companions, Christian soldiers who were massacred in Switzerland because they refused to offer sacrifices to pagan gods.
St. Thomas of Villanova
St. Thomas was born in Spain in 1488, and inherited a special love toward the poor from his parents; he often gave away his very clothes. After the death of his father and mother, he used his inheritance to sustain poor virgins. He became a lecturer in the higher schools at Alcala, entered the order of the Hermits of St. Augustine in 1516 at Villanova, and acted as court preacher to Charles V. Against his will he was made archbishop of Valencia (1544), then exercised the office as a zealous shepherd of souls and a great friend of the poor. The bed in which he died was borrowed back from the one to whom he had given it as alms shortly before. During the sixteenth century he was called the “apostle of the Spaniards.” Excerpted from The Church’s Year of Grace, Pius Parsch.
Symbols: open purse; wallet; bishop’s mitre; book; bag of coins.