Sebastián de Aparicio
Roman Catholic Church (Mexico and the Order of Friars Minor) | |
---|---|
Beatified | 17 May 1789 by Pope Pius VI |
Feast | 25 February |
Attributes | Oxcart with oxen |
Patronage | Transport industry (Mexico) |
Sebastián de Aparicio y del Pardo (20 January 1502 – 25 February 1600) was a
Early life
Aparicio was born in A Gudiña, Ourense, in the Galician region of Spain. He was the third child and only son of Juan de Aparicio and Teresa del Prado, who were poor, but pious peasants, and spent his childhood tending sheep and cattle and in service to those of means. He learned his prayers from his parents, but had no schooling, and was not able to read or write.[1] Despite his illiteracy, he had absorbed how to lead a pious and holy life so that he could emulate models in hagiographic texts.[2] According to his own account, his life was saved in a seemingly-miraculous way during an outbreak of the bubonic plague in his town in 1514. Forced to isolate him from the community in quarantine, his parents built a hidden shelter for him in the woods, where they left him. While lying there helpless, due to his illness, a she-wolf found the hiding spot and, poking her head into his hiding spot, sniffed and then bit and licked an infected site on his body, before running off. He began to heal from that moment.[3]
When Aparicio was older, he determined to seek work outside his region in order to help support his family and to provide dowries for his sisters. He traveled east to Salamanca and then as far south as Sanlúcar de Barrameda, where he became the overseer of a large farm.[2] Apparently, due to his good looks, he was frequently the target of sexual advances by women, which violated his determination to live a life of chastity.[citation needed] He finally decided to escape the situation and to improve his fortune by traveling to the newly conquered Americas.
Mexico
Successful Entrepreneur
Aparicio sailed from Spain in 1533, landing in
Once settled in Puebla, Aparicio began to cultivate indigenous maize but also European wheat. He was one of the first Spaniards who raised and trained cattle, another European import, to use in plow farming and transportation.[4] He got permission to ride out into the brush and round up wild cattle which he then trained to pull a cart. As a result, he is considered to be the first Mexican “cowboy” or charro.[5] He realized the difficulty of transporting supplies in Mexico, which before the conquest had no domesticated animals to move goods and difficult terrain, which meant that transport between growing Spanish settlements impeded economic expansion. The burden the lack of decent roads fell on both the native peoples and animals forced to bear the loads on poor and uneven surfaces through the mountains cutting the countryside. He then conceived the idea of building roads from Puebla to the port of Veracruz, Mexico's main link to Spain. He recruited a fellow Spaniard as a partner in the enterprise, and they approached the colonial authorities for a grant to undertake this construction. Successful in this, they began building the roads which began to connect Spanish communities of Mexico. After several years, he promoted the building of a highway to connect the silver mining city of Zacatecas with Mexico City. The discovery of silver in Mexico in the 1540s was a major event in the economic consolidation of the colony. Aparicio established the transport system which sent agricultural products to Spain and brought necessary items to the residents of New Spain.[6]
Aparicio prospered, becoming a wealthy man, but he decided to sell his transport business in 1552. He then bought an expanse of land (hacienda de labor) near Zacatecas, where he farmed and ranched cattle. He began to teach the native people how to use a plow for their farms. He showed them how to domesticate horses and oxen, introduced by the Spanish and unfamiliar to the indigenous population, and how to build wagons for transporting their goods, as wheels had also previously been unknown.
Friar
Shortly after being widowed for the second time, Aparicio grew seriously ill and began to re-assess his life. He began to dress very simply and to spend long hours in church. Feeling a call to enter the consecrated life, he frequently visited the Franciscan friars in Tlalnepantla. Added to his own doubts were those of a number of the friars as to his ability to follow their life. Finally his confessor made a suggestion: Aparicio would donate his fortune to the first Monastery of Poor Clares in Mexico, founded a few years earlier, and would live as a volunteer on the grounds, serving the external needs of the nuns. He accepted this suggestion, and signed a deed to this effect on 20 December 1573.[5]
The following year, despite considerable advice against this from his friends, given his advanced age, Aparicio finally decided to apply to the friars to be admitted as a lay brother. After a year of following the routine of service and prayer followed by nuns, the superiors of the friars decided to accept him, and he received the
After this, Aparicio was assigned to serve at the friary in Santiago,
Aparicio was given an oxcart with two oxen to travel through the city and the surrounding villages. He lived on the road for days, sleeping on the ground under the cart in bad weather. He would spend his time meditating on the
Aparicio's level of health, even at the end of his life, was attested to in an incident which occurred while he was on the road. One time, as he was returning to the friary with the cart filled with donations, a wheel started to come off. The friar dismounted and unhooked the oxen from the cart. He then lifted it himself, while he repaired the wheel. The laborer who saw this swore that it would normally have taken four men to lift that cart. He was aged 95 at the time of the incident.[5]
Death
Though he had long suffered from a
On the evening of 25 February, Aparicio asked to be laid on the ground to meet his death, in imitation of St. Francis. He soon died in the arms of a fellow Galician, Friar Juan de San Buenaventura, with his last word being "Jesus".[5] When his body lay in state, the crowds that gathered were large, and the miracles wrought were so numerous, that he could not be buried for several days.[6] His habit had to be replaced repeatedly, as mourners would snip a piece of it off to keep as the relic of a saint.[5]
When authorities exhumed Aparicio's body six months later, they found that it had not decomposed. Two years later when they exhumed his body again, it still remained incorrupt. After an investigation by the
Blessed Sebastian of Aparicio is the Patron Saint of travelers.[7]
Notes
- ^ a b Escobar, Juan, O.F.M. "Sebastián de Aparicio, Beato". Catholic.net. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)(in Spanish) - ^ a b c Morgan 2002, p. 36.
- ^ a b c d e Markey, Greg, Father (14 February 2013). "Blessed Sebastián de Aparicio". Fairfield County Catholic. Archived from the original on 6 March 2013. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Morgan 2002, pp. 40–41.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Calvo Moralejo, Gaspar, O.F.M. (1973). Emigrante... hay camino: Sebastián de Aparicio. Madrid: España misionera. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
{{cite book}}
:|work=
ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)(in Spanish) - ^ a b "Blessed Sebastian of Aparicio". Roman Catholic Saints. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
- ^ "Blessed Sebastian of Aparicio", Franciscan Media
References
- Morgan, Ronald J. (2002). Spanish American saints and the rhetoric of identity, 1600-1810. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. OCLC 47971496.