[Trending News] What saint celebrates today, February 19?

We must not confuse it with the well -known Álvaro de Córdoba (Paulo) who lived in the big century of the Cordoba martyrs and that was intimate friend of the martyr San Eulogioplaying a great role of apologeta in the Mozarabic Spain of the Umayyas, noting with their Master waiting, Leaving writings – even in bass Latin – that defended the mysteries of the Christian faith with a passion and an unusual strength even when he endangered his life.

This was a man married and with childrenstrong in faith, in full in the truth of coherence, vibrant intellectual until the exhaustion that he lived practicing the life of faith that he professed in a continuum to encourage believers in Christ in time really very uphill that led enough, even to qualified pastors, to the apostasy of faith. Never Admitió la componenda nor the recess of the commitments acquired. He was next to his suffering, disabled, cornered, socially mistreated, sometimes persecuted and some martyred brothers. He died in poverty with the strength of faith. Maybe he deserved to be taken to the altars and serve as an example and help for the bold who at all times and anywhere in the world are forced to defend their Christian condition. But that does not correspond to us. In fact, the greatness of this Álvaro is remarkable; But he has not been invoked as a saint in the universal church and does not appear, despite his greatness, among the saints of his time that passed through martyrdom leaving his blood. It belongs to the very large group of anonymous saints who made “the Moors” while they had the dominated Cordoba.

Álvaro de CórdobaBlessed, is another no less distinguished in his works, holiness and apostolate, no less great because of how difficult he had in the circumstances of the 15th century, or less incisive in the subsequent impact of his work. He was born at the end of the fourteenth century and died in 1430.

He first passes his life between the cloister and teaching in the University of Salamanca. At the dawn of the fifteenth century he leaves the chair to travel the paths of Spain, Provence, Savoy and Italy, vibrant of restlessness and with Paulino dynamism, stirred by the urgency of the apostolate. The times are difficult, bad; The black plague passed Europe and leaving the empty convents that then tried to fill with people not prepared with what Religious tension declined. The corruption of customs is a generalized fact; The shepherds smear. There are, with legitimacy, three tiaras; Some obey as legitimate to the Pope of Aviñón, others to Rome and others who are in Pisa. Álvaro hurts his soul; Preach, observe, pray and make penance for the desired unit.

On his return to Spain they name him confessor of the QUEEN CATALINA DE LANCASTER And his son Juan II. But Álvaro leaves the Court soon because he longs for the Dominican reform. Already obtains the permits to establish renovated convents in the kingdoms of Spain; Martín V makes him prior to all the renovated Dominican convents in Spain; Escalaceli founded seven kilometers from Córdoba, first of the reformed of the Dominican order that will soon be extended with Portaceli in Seville. In love with the Passion of Christ – which took him to the Holy Land -, plant steps that remember the passion of Jesus in the Sierra de Córdoba from Gethsemaní to the cross of the Golgotha; Paredly pray, meditate and travel again and again the different moments or steps or stations of the Lord's painful itinerary. It was for Álvaro and his religious the painful reminder. Then the Dutchman Adricomio and Fr. Daza will give the form and They will set fourteen the stations to the first via crucis That Leonardo de Porto Mauricio will also popularize later in Italy, importing him from Spain.

Escalaceli is Pilgrimage Center Of the people who, every time from more distant sites, spend nights, pray, cry their sins, they ask for forgiveness, expand and then sing. From it he received good influence and teaching the devotion of the Andalusian people for their macarenas, their crucified chrys and their “steps” of Holy Week. Yes, that opened as deep groove in the Christian Andaluza as the wounds that the gubias of Martínez Montañés, Juan de Mesa and Cristóbal de Mora.

Other Saints of the Day

Agaton, pope; Zambdas, Casiano, Barbato, Massueto, quodvultdeus, bishops; Gabino, Publy, Julian, Marcelo, martyrs; Conduate, eugenio, beato (from liébana), confalonor, conferences; two, monjes; Martin Wu Xuesheng, Juan Zhang aunt, Juan Chen Xianting, Lucía and Zhenmei, catequista laicos martyrs martyrs of guizhou; Beato ávaro de Córdoba.