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The saints

St. Isidore the Farmer

A farmhand near Madrid who went to Mass every morning, and angels plowed while he prayed.

Feast: 15 May (feast on the U.S. calendar) · about 1070 to 1130 · The Middle Ages · Madrid, Spain

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Painting of St. Isidore the Farmer kneeling in prayer in a field, oxen plowing behind him.

Wolfgang Sauber, 2009. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Home / The saints / St. Isidore the Farmer

The fields outside Madrid

Isidore worked his whole life as a hired hand on a farm outside Madrid.1

He went to Mass every morning before work, and other workers complained he was late.1

The legend says his boss came to check and saw angels plowing beside him.

Patron of farmers and rural laborers1

01St. Isidore the Farmer

Plenty for everyone

He and his wife, Maria, shared what little they had with the poor, and stories say the food never ran out.1

Live it this week

Pray before work

Isidore never started work without Mass and prayer. Every workday this week, before you open the laptop or start the truck, pray one short prayer offering the day’s work.

Notes

How we know · 1 source for this page
  1. Franciscan Media, Saint of the Day: “Saint Isidore the Farmer”. franciscanmedia.org. franciscanmedia.org

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: World English Bible, Catholic edition (public domain); Verse numbers are modern, with Douay-Rheims numbers in brackets where they differ. Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an errorCorrections.