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Didacus of Alcalá
Saint Didacus of Alcalá | |
|---|---|
_San_Diego_de_Alcal%C3%A1.png) Saint Didacus of Alcalá in the "miracle of the roses," by Zurbarán. | |
| Franciscan religious | |
| Born | 1400 San Nicolás del Puerto, Kingdom of Seville |
| Died | November 13, 1463 (aged 62–63) Alcalá de Henares, Crown of Castile |
| Venerated in | Catholic Church |
| Canonized | July 10, 1588 by Sixtus V |
| Feast | November 13 |
| Attributes | Crucifix, roses |
Fray Diego de San Nicolás, O.F.M., known as Saint Didacus of Alcalá (San Diego de Alcalá; San Nicolás del Puerto, Seville, Spain, November 14, 1400 – Alcalá de Henares, November 13, 1463), was a Spanish Franciscan friar regarded as a saint by the Catholic Church.
He wore the Franciscan habit as a lay brother in the Order of Friars Minor of the Observance. He was a missionary in the Canary Islands, where he came to hold the post of guardian of the convent.
He was canonized by Pope Sixtus V in 1588, in the first canonization carried out by the Catholic Church after the creation of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. He is considered the patron of Franciscan lay brothers (non-clerics) for having been the first lay brother of the Order to be canonized.
His feast is celebrated on November 13.
Biography
He was born at the beginning of the 15th century into a modest family, in the village of San Nicolás del Puerto, in the north of the Province of Seville and in the heart of the Sierra Morena, in the Kingdom of Seville, a territorial jurisdiction belonging to the Crown of Castile.[note 1]
His parents, who were of the Christian faith, gave him the name Diego, a derivation of Santiago, patron of Spain.
From his earliest youth he devoted himself as a hermit in the chapel of Saint Nicholas of Bari in his native town, and later in the hermitage of Albaida,[1] under the spiritual direction of a hermit priest.
Diego de Alcalá was a rather well-traveled man for his time; he lived in the Canary Islands, Rome, Castile and various places in the Four Kingdoms of Andalusia, traveling through numerous places, mainly in the Kingdom of Córdoba, the Kingdom of Seville and Cádiz.
During his pilgrimage to Rome he passed through numerous places in Spain, France and Italy. He resided in the convents of La Arruzafa (Córdoba),[2] Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Santa María de Araceli (Rome) and Santa María de Jesús (Alcalá de Henares), where he died in 1463.
Very little is known about his early years. The most reliable of his biographies, that of Francisco Peña, advocate and promoter in Rome of the cause for his canonization, who must have possessed the best information about the life of Saint Didacus, acknowledges as much. Cristóbal Moreno del Camino, who in the 16th century translated Peña's Latin work into Castilian, also notes this lack of information about his childhood and early years. And even the Historia del glorioso san Diego de San Nicolás, written by the former guardian of the convent of Santa María de Jesús in Alcalá de Henares, where he lived and died, refers for this period to the earlier biographies by Peña and Moreno. The Historia by Rojo, the Complutensian guardian, which appeared in 1663, sixty years after Moreno's death and a century after Peña's Latin work, was unable to add new information, as would have seemed logical given that he had lived in the same convent, to what the bull and earlier biographers tell us. Alonso Morgado does not enrich our knowledge of Diego's childhood either, with contributions that might fill the gap of his early years.
Religious profession
After his time in Albaida, and with his will to devote himself to the religious life confirmed, he moved to the convent of San Francisco de la Arruzafa, in Córdoba. There Diego entered the Order of Friars Minor of the Observance (Observant Franciscans) as a lay brother. Indeed, Saint Didacus is the patron of Franciscan lay brothers, that is, those who are not priests.
During his stay in this convent he visited numerous towns in Córdoba, Seville and Cádiz, giving rise to a devotion that still survives in the traditions of quite a few of those towns.
La Arruzafa is one of the convents in Spain restored to the primitive and rigorous Franciscan observance, around 1409, by Fray Pedro Santoyo. The site it occupied is now home to the Parador de la Arruzafa.
Mission in the Canary Islands
In 1441 he was sent as a missionary to the Canary Islands, to the convent of Arrecife (island of Lanzarote), where he worked as porter. In his role as porter of the convent, he had the opportunity to exercise charity with great generosity, at times considered excessive by his brothers in the community.
He then lived in the Franciscan convent of Fuerteventura until he returned to the peninsula in 1449. For four years he held the office of guardian of the convent. The Canary Islands, which in 1402 had been claimed for colonization by Jean de Béthencourt, had initially been evangelized by the Franciscans. Very soon the task was continued by the Observant Franciscans (a reform movement within the Order of Friars Minor), who founded the convent of Fuerteventura in 1422. Upon the death of the first guardian and Vicar of the Mission of the Canaries, all eyes fell on Fray Diego, who was elected successor and had to move there. The leaders of the Order had set aside the legal rule against conferring any governing office on a lay brother. He sailed for Gran Canaria, but a storm forced him to turn back to Fuerteventura, where, shortly afterward, he received the order to return to the Iberian Peninsula, going to Sanlúcar de Barrameda.
Saint Didacus of Alcalá, together with his companion from the convent, Juan de Santorcaz, is credited with the discovery of the image of the Virgin of the Rock (patroness of the Island of Fuerteventura).[3]
Pilgrimage to Rome
On the occasion of the celebration in Rome of the Jubilee of 1450, decreed by Pope Nicholas V, and of the canonization of Bernardino of Siena, thousands of Friars Minor made a pilgrimage to that city, among them Fray Diego. A large number of the religious who had come to Rome fell ill, victims of an epidemic that struck the city, and the spacious convent of Araceli was turned into an infirmary. Fray Diego took charge of the improvised hospital, where he remained for three months caring for the sick.
Return to Spain
On his return to Spain he passed through several convents, among them that of Nuestra Señora de la Salceda, in Tendilla (Guadalajara). In 1456 he moved to the Convent of Santa María de Jesús (Alcalá de Henares), which had just been built by Alfonso Carrillo, Archbishop of Toledo. This was the oldest of the convents founded in this city, located outside its walls, next to the present-day University. He would spend the rest of his life in that convent, seven years, working as gardener and as porter. He would have been somewhat over sixty when he died. His remains have since been kept in the Cathedral of Alcalá de Henares. They are currently preserved in a 17th-century silver urn, and his incorrupt body is displayed every year on November 13.
Having been popular in life among the humblest, after his death he drew the most powerful to his tomb. Henry IV of Castile came to his tomb to ask him for the healing of Joanna la Beltraneja. Cardinals of Toledo, princes of Spain, and later King Philip II himself came to his tomb, moved by a feeling of trust in his miraculous holiness.
Philip II had the mummy brought to the royal chambers in order to invoke divine mediation in the healing of his son Prince Carlos of Austria, when in 1562, while studying in Alcalá de Henares, he suffered a serious fall down the stairs of the Archbishop's Palace, receiving a severe blow to the head. This event would later be considered a miracle and would be popularized by Lope de Vega.[4]
Another miracle attributed to him is that of having saved, during a journey he made to Seville while staying at La Arruzafa, a child who had recklessly climbed into an oven and fallen asleep there, and the oven was lit in the meantime. After Diego's mediation, the little boy appeared outside the oven without the slightest burn. The humble friar used to attribute this and other miracles to the intercession of the Virgin Mary.
Canonization
He was the only saint canonized throughout the entire 16th century, by Pope Sixtus V, on July 10, 1588, culminating the process introduced by Pius IV at the request of King Philip II of Spain, thus becoming the first Spanish saint of the Modern Age.[5] Among the six miracles approved by the Sacred Congregation of Rites for his canonization, the most famous is precisely the healing of Prince Carlos.
Devotion
He was a very popular saint. Many convents, churches and chapels, and even the city of San Diego in California, are dedicated to his name. Among the friars, he is the patron of Franciscan lay brothers.[6]
In Spain, he is the patron of his native town, San Nicolás del Puerto (Seville), of the Almería town of Cuevas del Almanzora,[7] of Cogolludo in La Alcarria and of Ayamonte in Huelva. In Baena (Córdoba), every Wednesday of Holy Week, he is carried in procession at the head of the procession of the Cofradía de Nuestro Padre Jesús del Huerto, of which he is co-titular. He is also the patron of Tuéjar, a Spanish municipality belonging to the province and diocese of Valencia, in the Valencian Community, and to the comarca of Los Serranos. He is also the patron of the town of Almendricos, in the municipal district of Lorca, in the Province of Murcia.
In the Canary Islands, students celebrate him in an unofficial but widespread festivity, the Fuga de San Diego.[8] This consisted of honoring Saint Didacus at his hermitage, located outside the walls of the city of San Cristóbal de La Laguna on Tenerife. The students had to count the buttons on the tunic of the statue of the founder of the convent (the present-day hermitage of San Diego); it was said that if they guessed the number correctly, they would pass their exams. It is still celebrated today, although students no longer go to his hermitage, but rather take the day as a pretext for not attending classes. The feast of Saint Didacus of Alcalá is also celebrated in the Canary Islands in Tuineje, as well as in Gran Tarajal (Fuerteventura).
In America, it is a feast day in several places in Mexico: in the State of Campeche, in the community of Nunkiní, municipality of Calkiní. In the State of Michoacán, specifically in Quiroga, he is celebrated from November 12 to 15 with the famous dance of the Moors, in which more than 2,000 people take part every year in honor of their patron saint. Also, in the Municipality of Santiago Astata, Oaxaca, there is the Bay of San Diego in his honor, except that the feast is celebrated annually on December 20. Likewise, in the community of San Diego Tetitlán in Huatusco, a series of events is held in his commemoration on November 13. Also in the northern state of Durango, in the municipalities of Canatlán and Peñón Blanco, of which he is patron saint and where the mission of San Diego de Alcalá was founded during the Spanish explorations of colonization. The local parish bears the name of this saint to this day. In the United States of America, he gives his name to the city of San Diego (California), San Diego County (California) and the San Diego mission. In Venezuela he is venerated as patron of the town of Ocumare del Tuy, in Miranda State.
Saint Didacus in art
Great artists took him as their subject. Lope de Vega dedicated to him the sonnet La verde yedra al tronco asida and the comedy San Diego de Alcalá.
He is depicted as young and beardless, even though he reached the age of sixty, frequently with:
- Some keys, for having been porter and cook of the convent,
- Gathering up with both hands his scapular like an apron full of flowers.
This last episode is one of the most popular and most frequently depicted in his iconography. It refers to a legend according to which Diego was so generous with those who begged at the door of the convent that his superiors found him tiresome and excessive. On one occasion, when they saw Diego carrying something in his habit, and suspicious because he had already given out the daily alms, they were about to reprimand him when the bread rolls the saint was carrying to the poor miraculously turned into roses.[9]
He was portrayed by Zurbarán, Ribera, Murillo, Gregorio Fernández, Alonso Cano and Pedro de Mena, depicting scenes from his life related to the performance of works of charity or some of the miracles attributed to him.[10] The Baroque painter Annibale Carracci devoted a complete cycle of frescoes to the life of Saint Didacus in the Church of Santiago de los Españoles in Rome, now distributed among various museums and institutions.
The controversy over the toponym
Fray Diego de San Nicolás always bore the name of his native village in the documents of his time. Both the earliest histories of the saint and the canonization bull issued by Sixtus V know no other place of reference than San Nicolás del Puerto. Nevertheless, he is known in the calendar of saints as San Diego de Alcalá, after the place where he spent his last years and where his remains rest. This name was furthermore popularized by Lope de Vega, who used it as the title of one of his comedies, whose plot is the life of the saint.[4]
Alonso Morgado, in his Santoral Hispalense, considers that Saint Didacus should be designated by the name of his native town instead of the toponym of Alcalá.[11] The same thing happens with Saint Anthony of Padua, who was born in Lisbon (Portugal) and died in Padua (Italy), where his remains rest; or with Saint Isidore of Seville, who was born in Cartagena.
See also
- Convent of Santa María de Jesús (Alcalá de Henares), where he died.
- Foundation of San Diego de Alcalá
- Felix of Alcalá
- Saints Justus and Pastor
- Casilda of Toledo
- Elizabeth of Hungary
- Elizabeth of Aragon (Queen of Portugal)
Notes
References
- ↑ "Copia archivada" (in español). Archived from the original on March 11, 2008. Retrieved May 7, 2008.
- ↑ San Francisco de la Arruzafa (Córdoba)
- ↑ La Virgen de la Peña. Rosario Cerdeña
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lope de Vega. San Diego de Alcalá. 1613. Comedia en verso sobre la vida de San Diego. Incluye el milagro del príncipe Carlos.
- ↑ Quilés García, Fernando (2005). Por los Caminos de Roma (in español). Miño y Dávila. pp. 51 y 52.
- ↑ 13 de noviembre: San Diego de Alcalá, OFM Obs. Patrón de los hermanos franciscanos legos. Fratefrancesco.org 22/05/2022.
- ↑ Feria de San Diego de Cuevas de Almanzora
- ↑ http://www.diariodeavisos.com/content/241141/
- ↑ http://dugi-doc.udg.edu/bitstream/10256/1332/1/Capilla%20Herrera.pdf
- ↑ Monreal y Tejada, Luis. Iconografía del cristianismo (in español). Acantilado. ISBN 84-95359-28-6.
- ↑ Andrés-Avelino Esteban Romero. Santoral franciscano. 13 de noviembre. San Diego de Alcalá (1400?-1463).
Bibliography
- Gros y Raguer, José (1961). "San Diego de Alcalá" (in español). Barcelona, España. Archived from the original on March 7, 2016. Retrieved 2008.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|access-date=(help) - Esteban Romero, Andrés-Avelino (1960). "Santoral Franciscano" (in español). Madrid: Ed. Católica. (BAC 186), 1960, pp. 365-369. Retrieved 2008.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|access-date=(help) - Gálvez, Tomás (2002). "fratefrancesco.org" (in español). Retrieved 2008.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|access-date=(help) - de Vega, Lope (between 1700–1760). Alonso del Riego (ed.). Comedia famosa San Diego de Alcalá (in español). Valladolid. p. 49.
{{cite book}}: Check date values in:|year=(help)CS1 maint: year (link) - Ambrosio de Cuevas. Relación de un milagro que el glorioso san Diego hizo en la Villa de Alcalá de Henares, de uno niño que resucitó. Alcalá de Henares: viuda de Juan Gracián; 1607. Archived December 8, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
External links
