Isidro, the saint tied to his land

• "It's getting late.

  Not that I'm in a hurry to get anywhere.

  At my age there is no rush.

  The ears of wheat no longer await my embrace in the summer, nor does the grain miss me in the winter, when the mill goes round and round.

  And more laps.

  It's late.

  For someone my age it's always sunset.

  Maybe today for the last time.

  As the day winds down, I sometimes wish my memory failed me: I wouldn't have to remember the amount of exaggeration I've had to hear about myself.

  That if I am a saint, that if I work miracles, that if the angels do my work while I pray... I am Isidro, only Isidro.

  A servant of God, the smallest.

  One who learned in the Holy Scriptures to knead the earth so that it bears fruit, as my Lord did so many times.

  I am Isidro, the man who loves the land he tills,

  who caresses the water that suddenly gushes from the spring in the meadow, who looks into the eyes of his oxen and makes himself understood.

  There are no longer any muezzins calling for evening prayers from the minaret.

  But it was by listening to them that I began to be Isidro...».

The last beats of the 11th century were throbbing when Isidro saw the light for the first time

, an enclave of Muslim al-Andalus belonging to the prosperous Taifa of Toledo.

His family is Mozarabic, they are Christians who preserve their faith by living in Arab territory in exchange for paying taxes and accepting a lower social position.

The soundtrack of Isidro's early years were, then, the five calls to prayer that heralded a break in the tasks to raise one's eyes towards Allah.

.

Because after the agreement between King Alfonso VI and the Muslim sovereign Yahya ibn Ismaíl ibn Yahya al-Qádir bi-L-lah, the Islamic Mayrit became Christian Madrid, in need of families to till the plantations of the lords of the town. whom Alfonso VI rewarded with land for their help in taking Toledo.

It is, according to all sources, the case of Isidro, whose parents put themselves at the service of the family of Juan de Vargas, among others, in the midst of the Reconquest.

These are times when

in a solid embrace that barely allows you to distinguish one from the other.

Trying to find the exact information about the life of the patron saint of Madrid is, most of the time, a sterile task.

However, in the case of Isidro, although it is evident that the oral tradition and various writings enlarge his figure with noble intention but without historical criteria, there are few but extremely valuable biographical notes collected in the

, a truthful material to reconstruct, albeit clumsily, the singular pilgrimage of the first married layman to be canonized with the demanding pontifical protocol imposed by the Council of Trent.

Before the conciliar instructions, the ascent to the altars could take place by less... formal, more arbitrary means, with the spurious intention of having a saint from whom to profit financially.

Isidro's canonization, however, had to pass the recently instituted exams, after which Gregory XV proclaimed him a saint of the universal Church.

Incorrupt body of San Isidro.

• “Nothing is easy if you are poor, unless the land you walk on is enough for you.

  It was my case, but even sister earth trembled at the passage of the hosts of Ali ibn Yúsuf in his efforts to take over Madrid and Toledo, places that resisted him until the end.

  I, and other people of peace like me, who knew and respected Islam, then became pilgrims, expatriates in search of serenity.

  We were emigrants.

  And so we arrived at Torrelaguna.

  And there I met her.

  Mary.

  Mary Toribia.

  My Maria, from whom our Illán was born.

  Nothing can gladden the heart of a parent more than having raised a good son.

  And ours is.

  He too has to live daily with that impertinence of being called a saint.

  As if celebrating life every day and giving thanks to God for existence by helping others were such an extraordinary thing that an altar was needed.

  'You are a saint from next door,' I often tell Illán.

  You are like that multitude of men with sincere hearts who will not go down in history'.

  Although in truth, the afternoon we almost lost him when he fell into the well, Maria and I knew that God had set his eyes on our little boy...».

Risking beyond what is included in the medieval code on Isidro's life,

.

This one stars in one of the unusual events that, presented as miracles, portray the experience of faith of the saint and his intimacy with God.

Thus, the salvation of the son fallen into the well is attributed to the disconsolate prayer of his parents, thus insisting on

.

The same happens with the so-called miracles of the oxen and with that of the wolf.

In the first, a yoke of white oxen is shown plowing the land together with those that the master entrusted to the patron saint, thus increasing productivity and allowing Isidro to dedicate a large part of the day to prayer.

Also for this purpose of catechesis on the importance of entering into a relationship with God, a rumor is spread that, alerted by some children that his donkey was being torn to pieces by a wolf while he was praying, Isidro continues in prayer and later finds the man dead. wolf and heals his mount.

With the same

, the conviction is spread that the grain that the saint gives to pigeons almost dead by the cold of winter is not deducted from their sack, which reaches the mill completely full despite the generous act of the most singular resident of Madrid.

This treatment with nature, with which Isidro interacts considering it a gift from God and an object of his care, can well be interpreted as an anticipation of the most current theological currents claimed by Pope Francis in the encyclical

, on the care of the planet, our common home.

patron, protector of all forms of life.

Two other miracles complete the religious profile of Isidro.

This time, related to charity towards

.

Thus, both pots, in his house and in his brotherhood, never run out of their contents when it comes to feeding the homeless.

This initial mosaic of miracles, to which history later adds many other events of more dubious intention, serve to outline the personality, especially the interiority, of the saint who loved the earth, who felt tied to it.

The land as a common space in which to develop life and seek a meaning that reaches a

that transcends the

in which the lives of a large part of the people of Madrid over whom it exercises its patronage unfolds.

Rather, they are the scalpel that makes it possible to bring to light what Isidro de Madrid, the farmer of the land, carries inside.

Pilgrimage of San Isidro.EFE

• «I don't remember if I have already said that it is getting late.

  In the end it will be true that I am losing some memory.

  I know it's late.

  Maria... my Maria and I haven't seen each other for a long time.

  Not because we lack love, but to attend to the orders of the master and to better surrender ourselves to contemplate God and pray for men.

  I have lived too long, 90 years are too many for those who have remained tied to the earth, tilling it, scratching it in the hope of learning how to bear fruit from it.

  Now, when the night is near, I can say that I have fulfilled.

  My will attests to how my life has been, my desire is to receive the Body of Christ on my bed when death looks me in the eye.

  I ask God for the strength to beat my chest as a sign of forgiveness,

San Isidro Labrador died with a reputation for being a saint.

to who inhabited it, in the cemetery of San Andrés.

Her body remains incorrupt.

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