San Isidro Labrador
( Año 1130) (Year 1130)

Isidore was born to very poor parents in Madrid, about the year 1070. He was in the service of the wealthy Madrid landowner Juan de Vargas on a farm near Madrid. Juan de Vargas would later make him bailiff of his entire estate of Lower Caramanca.

Every morning before going to work, Isidore was accustomed to hearing a Mass at one of the churches in Madrid. One day his fellow-laborers complained to their master that Isidore was always late for work in the morning. Upon investigation, so runs the legend, the master found Isidore at prayer while an angel was doing the plowing for him.

On another occasion, his master saw an angel plowing on either side of him, so that Isidore's work was equal to that of three of his fellow-laborers. Isidore is also said to have brought back to life his master's deceased daughter, and to have caused a fountain of fresh water to burst from the dry earth to quench his master's thirst.

St. Isidore married Maria Torribia, a canonized saint, who is known as Santa María de la Cabeza in Spain because her head (cabeza in Spanish) is often carried in procession, especially during droughts. Isidore and Maria had one son, who died in his youth. On one occasion their son fell into a deep well and, at the prayers of his parents, the water of the well is said to have risen miraculously to the level of the ground, bringing the child with it, alive and well. Isidore and Maria then vowed sexual abstinence and lived in separate houses.

Isidore died on May 15, 1130, at his birthplace close to Madrid. When King Philip III of Spain was cured of a deadly disease by touching the relics of the saint, the king replaced the old reliquary with a costly silver one.

Isidore was beatified in Rome on May 2, 1619, by Pope Paul V. He was canonized nearly three years later by Pope Gregory XV, along with Saints Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, Teresa of Avila, and Philip Neri, on March 12, 1622.