Paschal Baylon

Early life Paschal Baylón was born on 16 May 1540 at Torrehermosa, in the Kingdom of Aragon (part of the Spanish Empire) on the feast of the Pentecost to the poor but pious peasants Martin and Elizabeth Jubera Baylón. He had a brother and two sisters.

From his seventh to his twenty-fourth year, he led the life of a shepherd, and during the whole of that period exercised a salutary influence upon his companions.

His mother gave him the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He learned to read by asking people for help with the words. Not having any other means to relieve the poor, he always gave them a part of his own dinner which was sent him into the fields. To help support the family, Paschal was hired out by his father to tend the flocks of others. Some of his companions were much inclined to cursing, quarrelling, and fighting; but learnt to hold their tongue in his presence since they respected his pious nature and his virtue. He was extremely honest, even offering to compensate owners of crops for any damage that his sheep caused.

Friar Those to whom he first mentioned his inclination to religious life, recommended several richly endowed monasteries, but he answered, "I was born poor and am resolved to die in poverty and penance".

In 1730, an indigenous Guatemalan claimed to have had a vision of a sainted Paschal appearing as a robed skeleton. This event became the basis of the heterodox tradition of San Pascualito.

Art often depicts him wearing the Franciscan habit and bearing a monstrance to signify his devotion to the Holy Eucharist. Pope John XXIII named the saint as the patron for the Segorbe diocese on 12 May 1961.

On 13 August 1936, during the Red Terror of the Spanish Civil War, anticlerical leftists disinterred and burned his body. The relics that remained were later transferred in the presence of King Juan Carlos I on 12 May 1992.

Towns San Pascual, Batangas, Philippines Saint-Pascal, Quebec, Canada Saint-Pascal Baylon, Ontario, Canada San Pascual, Burias Island, Masbate, Philippines San Pascual, Obando, Bulacan, Philippines San Pascual Baylon, Guinarona Dagami, Leyte San Pascual Baylon, Tinambac, Camarines Sur San Pasqual Valley, San Diego, California, USA