CHRIST: VIEW 1


BANNER

Historic and Inspirational Stories of the Blessed Sacrament with Prayers
FR. FREDERICK A. REUTER, K.C.B.S.
TAN BOOKS
with Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat, Feast of the Assumption, 1922



ST. PASCHAL BAYLON,
SAINT OF THE EUCHARIST
 
 1540-1582

Feast Day: May 17

VIEW AN IMAGE OF THE SAINT

THANKS mainly to his fellow religious, superior and biographer, Father Ximenes, we are well informed regarding St. Paschal's early days. He was born at Torre Hermosa, on the borders of Castile and Aragon, on a Whitsunday [another name for Pentecost], and seems to owe his Christian name to this, for in Spain, as well as in Italy, the term Pascua is given to other great Feasts of the year besides Easter. So the little son born to Martin Baylon and his wife Elizabeth Jubera was called Pascual.

From his seventh to his twenty-fourth year Paschal, first as the deputy of his own father, and then serving other employers, led the life of a shepherd. When about eighteen he first sough admission among the barefooted Friars Minor, St. Peter of Alcántara, the author of the reform, was still living. Probably the friars of the Loreto convent, knowing nothing of the young shepherd who came from a district two hundred miles away, doubted his fortitude. At any rate, they put him off, but when admitted him some few years later, they soon realized that God had committed a treasure to their keeping. The community lived at the level of the first fervor of the reform, but brother Paschal even in this ascetical atmosphere was recognized as being eminent in every religious virtue.

It is, however, as the Saint of the Eucharist that Saint Paschal is best remembered outside his own country. The long hours which he spent before the Tabernacle, kneeling without support, his clasped hands held up in front of, or higher than, his face, had left a deep impression upon his brethren/ He was on one occasion sent into France as the bearer of an important communication to Father Christopher de Cheffontaines, the very learned Breton scholar who at that time was the minister general of the Observants. For a friar wearing the habit of his  Order the journey across France at that time, when the wars of religion had reached their most acute phase, was extremely dangerous. He succeeded in his mission, but was handled very roughly; several times he barely escaped with his life. At one town in particular, where he was stoned by a party of Huguenots, he seems to have sustained an injury to his shoulder which was a cause of suffering for the rest of his days.

St. Paschal died, as he was born, on Pentecost, in the friary at Villareal. He was fifty-two years old. It was held to be significant of his life-long devotion to the Blessed Sacrament that, with the holy name of Jesus on his lips, he passed just as the bell was tolling to announce the Consecration at High Mass. He was canonized in 1690.

SOURCE USED:
BUTLER'S LIVES OF THE SAINTS, Edited by Michael Walsh, Harper Publishing,
1956, With Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat.



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