Description
Saint Paschal of Baylon Healing Oil (Seraph of the Eucharist)
Saint Paschal of Baylon Healing Oil (16 May 1540 – 17 May 1592). A Spanish Roman Catholic lay professed religious of the Order of Friars Minor. He served as a shepherd alongside his father in his childhood and adolescence, but desired to enter the religious life.
The process for his canonization opened and in 1618 he was beatified; Pope Alexander VIII canonized him a saint on 16 October 1690.
Paschal Baylón was born on 16 May 1540 at Torrehermosa, in the Kingdom of Aragon, on the feast of the Pentecost to the poor but pious peasants Martin and Elizabeth Jubera Baylón. The fact that he was born on the feast of Pentecost led to his parents naming him “Pascual” (Paschal). He had at least two older siblings.
He spent his childhood and adolescence as a shepherd, and as he toiled in the fields remained attentive to the sound of the church bell which rang during the Elevation during the Mass. Paschal was very honest, and once offered to reimburse the owners of crops damaged due to his animals getting loose.
He carried a book with him into the fields where he watched the sheep, and ask those that he met to teach him the letters; and so, in a short time, being still quite young, he learned to read.
In 1564 he joined the Reformed Franciscans as a religious brother and commenced his period of novitiate on 2 February before making his profession on 2 February 1565 in Orito at the Saint Joseph convent. He urged to become an ordained priest but he felt that was not the path for him. But he was once denied the chance to join on the account of his age prompting him to return to his duties as a shepherd before the order had a change of heart and admitted him into their ranks.
The humble friar never wasted food. The end of each week saw him eat a few boiled vegetables which had soaked in water. With the terrible smelling weed known as wormwood. He often ate scraps from the kitchen. Other austerities included wearing a coat with steel spikes or a patched habit. Including one tunic lined with rough pig hair designed to cause discomfort. Sometimes he slept out in the cold.
He died on 17 May after falling ill; this day is also his feast day.
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