- Paschal Baylon
Infobox Saint
name=Saint Paschal Baylon
birth_date=1540
death_date=death date|1592|5|17|df=y
feast_day=May 17
venerated_in=Roman Catholicism 
imagesize=200px
caption=
birth_place=Torrehermosa,Aragon
death_place=
titles="Seraph of the Eucharist"
beatified_date=1618
beatified_place=
beatified_by=Paul V
canonized_date=October 16 1690
canonized_place=
canonized_by=Alexander VIII
attributes=
patronage=Patron of Eucharistic congresses and Eucharistic associations
major_shrine=Royal Chapel in Villareal
suppressed_date=
issues=
prayer=
prayer_attrib=Saint Paschal Baylon (or Pascal Baylon) (
24 May 1540 –17 May 1592 ) was a Spanishfriar and is asaint in theRoman Catholic Church .He was born at
Torrehermosa , in theKingdom of Aragon , on24 May ,1540 , on the Feast ofPentecost , called in Spain "the Pasch of the Holy Ghost", whence the name Paschal. His parents, Martin Baylon and Elizabeth Jubera, were poor peasants. He spent his youth as ashepherd . He would carry a book with him and beg any passerby to teach him the alphabet. He thereby learned to read, and as he toiled in the fields he would read religious books.In around 1564, he joined the
Reformed Franciscan Order (Alcantarine Reform ) as alay brother . He chose to live in poor monasteries because, he said, "I was born poor and am resolved to die in poverty and penance." He lived a life of poverty and prayer, even praying while working, for the rest of his life.He was a mystic and contemplative, and he had frequent ecstatic visions. He would spend the night before the altar in prayer many nights. At the same time, he sought to downplay any glory that might come from this piety. He died on
May 17 , which is his currentfeast day , in 1592.Veneration
His tomb in the Royal Chapel in Villareal in the old province of Valencia, where he died, immediately became an object of
pilgrimage . Beatified by Paul V in 1618, he was canonized by Alexander VIII onOctober 16 ,1690 . The saint is usually depicted in adoration before a vision ofthe Host .Paschal Baylon was enlisted in the Church's struggle against Modernism, part of which was through increasing devotion towards the Sacrament of the Eucharist;
Pope Leo XIII [in the Apostolic Brief "Providentissimus Deus ",November 28 ,1897 ] proclaimed Saint Paschal Baylon, the "seraph of the Eucharist", Patron of eucharistic congresses and all contemporary and future eucharistic associations.During the Red Terror at the time of the
Spanish Civil War his grave was desacrated and hisrelics burned byanticlerical leftists. [Butler, Alban, David Hugh Farmer and Paul Burns [http://books.google.com/books?id=7f1CnVuWceQC&pg=PA93&lpg=PA93&dq=martyrs+of+the+spanish+civil+war+eleven+canonized&source=web&ots=9gFqmP2yp-&sig=9V10QaCitpXVWrcpJ-cjfIos46E#PPA93,M1 Butler's Lives of the Saints] p. 93 (1997Continuum InternationalPublishing Group) ISBN 0860122549]Notes
External links
* [http://www.blessedsacrament.com/international/88.html Ferdinand Pratzner, "Saint Paschal Baylon: The centenary of the Patron of Eucharistic Associations and Congresses"]
* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11512a.htm Catholic Encyclopedia article]ee also
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
