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St. Didacus of Alcalá

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Saints and feasts

St. Didacus of Alcalá

Confessor

Didacus, or Diego, was a Franciscan lay brother known for prayer, manual work and service to sick friars. He served in the Canary Islands and died at Alcalá in 1463.

Sources

The life below remains the existing Butler-based reading, with its edition citation. The profile preserves the feast date and source title already listed in the library. Additional personal dates and historical details are shown only when separately documented.

Religious family: Franciscan lay brother
Butler records his entry into the Observant Friars Minor and service in the Canary Islands and Rome.

Butler sourceAlban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XI (November), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; November 13, “St Didacus, Confessor,” pp. 288-292.

Butler’s Lives of the Saints (1846)Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XI (November), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; November 13, “St Didacus, Confessor,” pp. 288-292.

The reading

ⓘ Butler source

Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XI (November), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; November 13, “St Didacus, Confessor,” pp. 288-292.

Didacus, also called Diego, came from Andalusia. As a young man he lived with a priest who followed an eremitical life. They worked in a garden and made simple wooden utensils. He later entered the Observant Franciscans as a lay brother, giving himself to prayer, manual labour and the ordinary service of the community.

He was sent to the Canary Islands and entrusted with the care of a friary on Fuerteventura. After returning to Spain, he travelled to Rome for the jubilee of 1450. Butler especially recalls the care he gave to sick friars there, attending them through a prolonged period of illness.

His later years were spent chiefly at Alcalá. Butler describes his humility, devotion to the Passion and love of the Blessed Sacrament. He died in 1463, holding a crucifix and asking his brethren’s pardon. Sixtus V canonized him in 1588. Butler distinguishes his death on November 12 from the November 13 observance appointed for the Roman Breviary.

Historical note

An original Novena Regina reading adapted and summarized from the cited pre-1962 sources. This is not a transcription of Butler’s words.

November 13 is the Roman observance recorded by Butler; the source gives November 12 as the date of death and the observance in his order.

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