San Diego de Alcala was a Franciscan friar who served God with devotion and love, as you will find out if you read our article carefully.
Biography and history of Saint Diego de Alcalá de Henares
Saint Diego de Alcala de Henares (Saint Didacus) was born around 1400 in San Nicolas, Andalusia, to humble and God-fearing parents.
He entered the Third Order of St. Francis of Assisi when he was barely an adult and, under the guidance of a pious tertiary priest, served God for a long time as a hermit.
Consumed by the desire for greater perfection, he later entered the Franciscan convent of Arizafa, in Castile, where he took solemn vows as a lay brother.
His rapid progress in virtue made him an example to all his companions. His soul was constantly occupied with God in prayer and meditation.
From this source he drew such a supernatural insight into God and the mysteries of faith that learned theologians listened in awe to the inspiring conversations of this uneducated lay brother.
Because Brother Diego de Alcala showed great zeal and sacrifice for souls, his superiors sent him and other brothers to the Canary Islands, then inhabited by pagan savages.
Diego was eager for martyrdom, and in this spirit he endured with untiring patience the many hardships that came his way. By word and example he helped to convert many infidels.
In 1445 he was appointed guardian of the main monastery in the islands of Fortaventura. Returning to Spain, he went to Rome in 1450 on the orders of the Vicar General Observer, St John Capistrano, to take part in the Great Jubilee and the canonisation of St Bernard of Siena.
In Ayamonte, Spain, the procession and feast of Saint Diego de Alcala is celebrated in this video:
On this occasion, an epidemic broke out among the many friars gathered in the large monastery of Aracoeli. Diego cared for the sick with great charity and trust in God. And God did not disappoint him.
Despite the lack of supplies and materials to fight the epidemic in the city, Diego always found a way to help his patients.
Through the work and miracles of God, he was able to heal many patients, and it is said that he only made the sign of the cross over them.
Leaving Rome, he returned to Spain where, as in earlier times, he was a source of great edification to the friars of all the conventions in which he lived.
When he felt the end of his life approaching, he asked for an old and worn-out habit so that he could die in it as a true son of poor St Francis.
Learn more about the life of this outstanding saint in this video:
It took months before Brother Diego could be buried, so many people came to venerate his remains. Not only did his body remain intact, but it also emitted a pleasant odour.
After his burial in the Franciscan church of Alcalá de Henares, amazing miracles continued to happen at his tomb. Pope Sixtus V, who was also a Franciscan, canonised Brother Diego in 1588.
Diego de Alcala de Henares was canonised by Pope Sixtus V in 1588, the first after a long pause following the Protestant Reformation (see: Who divided the Catholic Church with the Protestant Reformation) and the first lay brother of the Order of Friars Minor to be canonised.
His feast day is celebrated on 13 November, since 12 November, the day of his death, was occupied first by that of Pope St Martin I and then by that of the Basilian monk and Eastern Catholic martyr Josaphat Kuntsevych.
Saint Diego is the special heavenly patron of the Franciscan Friars. According to the liturgical calendar, his feast day is celebrated on 13 November.
Saint Diego de Alcala is the saint after whom the Franciscan mission named after him became the patron saint of the city of San Diego, California.
He is also the patron saint of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego. He came to this city through the faithful from Mexico, and when the United States took much of this territory from Mexico, his devotion became rooted in this city.
Until 1969, the Franciscans celebrated his feast day on 12 November. In the United States, the feast is celebrated on 7 November because of the feast of St Francis Xavier.
Watch this video report to see how San Diego de Alcala is celebrated in Mexico:
Who was Saint Diego de Alcala?
Diego de Alcala is living proof that God “chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong”.
As a young man in Spain, Diego joined the Secular Franciscan Order and lived for some time as a hermit, like St Anthony Abbot. After becoming a Franciscan friar, Diego developed a reputation for great understanding of the ways of God.
His penances were heroic. He was so generous to the poor that the friars were sometimes troubled by his charity.
Diego de Alcala volunteered for the missions in the Canary Islands, where he worked energetically and profitably. He was also the superior of a monastery there.
In 1450 he was sent to Rome to attend the canonisation of Saint Bernard of Siena. When many of the friars gathered for the celebration fell ill, Diego stayed in Rome for three months to nurse them.
On his return to Spain, he led a life of full-time contemplation. He showed the monks the wisdom of God’s ways.
As he lay dying, Diego looked at a crucifix and said: “Faithful wood, oh precious nails! You have borne a most sweet burden, for you have been found worthy to bear the Lord and King of Heaven”.
San Diego, California, is named after this Franciscan who was canonised in 1588.
Prayer to Saint Diego de Alcala
Prayer is communication with God (See: Prayer is Talking to God). Prayer can be public or private, spoken or silent.
The Psalms are prayers that we sing; they have been part of communal prayer in the Church since the earliest days of the Church. Prayer is communication with a God who loves us and wants to relate to us.
O Saint Diego of Alcalá, ardent apostle of the Holy Scriptures, who had the audacity to defend the defenceless against the powerful, who fed the hungry and healed the sick.
And even when you were on your deathbed, you remained a sincere and passionate devotee, with a crucifix pressed to your breast and heart, and so you could exclaim: “Sweet the wood, sweet the nails, sweet the weight they bear.
Grant us, O humble Brother, through your powerful intercession with God Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, the courage to defend all the humble, to show love to the poor and needy, to have compassion on the afflicted and, at the end of life, to give us a most holy death. Amen.
Watch this video of a hymn to St Diego de Alcala:
Prayer for the protection of Saint Diego de Alcala
O Almighty and Eternal God, who by Thy marvellous Providence hast chosen the weak things of the world to confound the strong, grant to us, Thy humble servants, that through the kind prayers of the Blessed Diego de Alcala, Thy Confessor, we may be worthy to be raised to eternal glory in heaven.
And so may You grant us Your holy protection and keep us under the care of St. Diego de Alcala. Amen.
Short prayer to Saint Diego de Alcala
We humbly ask you, San Diego de Alcala, to grant us your holy protection, so that nothing bad may happen in our lives, homes, families, jobs and businesses, we ask this with all our heart, through our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
Catholic prayer to St Diego de Alcala
O Almighty and Eternal God, who by an admirable order has chosen the weak things of the world to confound all that is strong, mercifully thank You for our humility, that through the pious prayers of Blessed Diego, Your Confessor, we may be worthy to be exalted to eternal glory in heaven.
This is the prayer addressed to God by the Church in all the liturgical hours dedicated to this theme. Your feast, O Diego.
Second, your petitions, for you are in great favour with Him whom you have so lovingly followed in the way of humility and voluntary poverty.
A royal path indeed, for it has brought you to a throne that eclipses all earthly things, even here below, where you far surpass many of your contemporaries who are now as forgotten as they once were illustrious.
Holiness alone deserves crowns that will endure through all ages of time and for all eternity, for God is the ultimate promoter, as He is the supreme reason, of all glory, just as in Him lies the principle of all true happiness, both for this world and the next.
May we all, by His example and with His help, learn this by our own blessed experience. Amen.
Novena to Saint Diego de Alcala
This novena to San Diego de Alcala is made for nine consecutive days, which can be extended until the petition or motive you have requested from the saint is fulfilled.
First prayer: You, San Diego de Alcalá de Henares, chosen by Our Lady of Guadalupe as a guide to teach the people and the world that the way of Christians is that of love, piety, understanding, values, atonement and asking forgiveness for our sins, appreciating and respecting all that God has created, and above all being humble and obedient.
St. Diego de Alcala, we know that from the moment of your departure you are living in the Kingdom of our Lord and close to our Virgin Mary, be our guardian and protect us, we want you to be with us and help us in our struggles of this modern life, where most of the time we do not know where to set our priorities.
Help us to pray to God, through the heart of Our Lady of Guadalupe, how we can reach the heart of Jesus and thus obtain the grace of the Holy Spirit to be used for the good of humanity and the good of our Church. Amen.
Daily prayer: Most Holy Trinity, I, your Son, thank you for all the goods and virtues you have bestowed on St Diego de Alcala, especially those with which you adorned him on earth and the glory you are now bestowing on him from heaven.
Fulfil your work, O Lord, so that your kingdom may be established on earth. Through his merits, in union with those of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, grant me the grace for which I ask.
And you, my powerful intercessor, St. Diego de Alcalá, who is always so ready to help those who come to you, I ask you to pray for me.
Go to the throne of God’s Divine Mercy and do not go unheard.
I entrust to you this important and urgent matter that I have asked of you and I ask you to take my cause into your hands and do not allow me to end this novena without having experienced in some way the effects of your intercession. Amen.
At the end of each day’s prayer, pray three Our Fathers, three Hail Marys and one Glory Be, so that the novena may be completed and the requested benefit may be obtained; you may accompany this prayer with a lighted white candle each day of prayer.
San Diego de Alcala Incorrupt Body
Immortality is a belief of the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church (see: What is Orthodox religion) that divine intervention allows some human bodies (especially saints and the blessed) to avoid the normal process of decomposition after death as a sign of their holiness.
Bodies that experience little or no decomposition, or delayed decomposition, are sometimes called incorruptible or immortal.
Incorruptibility is thought to occur even in the presence of factors that accelerate decomposition, as in the cases of St Catherine, Julie Billiart and St Francis Xavier.
The supposedly incorruptible body of St Diego de Alcalá is in Madrid. He is also the patron saint of the city of San Diego in California, after which he is named.
See the incorruptible body of San Diego de Alcala in this video:
The remains of San Diego de Alcalá are kept in a 17th-century silver urn in the Cathedral of Alcalá de Henares in Madrid.
His supposedly ‘intact’ body is displayed to the public every year on his feast day, 13 November.
On 13 November, the city of Alcalá de Henares honours the saint on the occasion of his feast day. Throughout the day, crowds of devotees flock to the cathedral to venerate the incorruptible body of the saint, which is exposed in front of the ark of the altar.
When he died of an abscess on 12 November 1463, it is said that everyone was surprised to find that instead of a foul odour, the scent emitted by his infection was rather pleasant.
It was also rumoured that his body remained incorruptible, did not suffer from rigor mortis and continued to give off a pleasant odour for years.
If you want to know how the incorruptible body of San Diego de Alcala is:
The miracles of San Diego de Alcala
It is said that one of his miracles occurred during a hunting trip when King Henry IV of Castile fell from his horse and injured his arm. In great pain and with his doctors unable to alleviate his suffering, he went to Alcala and prayed to Diego for a cure.
The saint’s body was removed from its coffin and placed beside the king. Henry then kissed the body and placed the saint’s hand on his injured arm. The king felt the pain disappear and his arm immediately regained its former strength.
Another of his famous miracles concerns Don Carlos, Prince of Asturias, son of King Philip II of Spain, who had a difficult and rebellious character.
On the night of 19 April 1562, after an evening with some ladies, he was groping in the dark when he fell down a staircase and landed on his head.
He was found there the next morning, unconscious and partially paralysed. He later went blind, developed a high fever and his head swelled to an enormous size.
In a moment of lucidity, he asked to make a personal petition to Saint Diego de Alcala. The saint’s body was taken to his room. The prior of the monastery placed one of Charles’s hands on Saint Diego’s chest and the prince fell into a deep and peaceful sleep.
Six hours later he awoke and said that in a dream he had seen the saint telling him that he would not die. The prince recovered from his brush with death.
A third miracle took place in 1450, when an epidemic broke out in the great monastery of Aracoeli, where many monks fell ill, Saint Diego, with trust in God and great charity, tended to all the sick, and despite the lack of supplies he always had enough food to take care of them.
It is said that he would simply make the sign of the cross over the sick and they would be miraculously healed.
One day Saint Diego heard a poor woman crying and knew that she was unaware that her seven year old son had fallen asleep in his big oven; she lit a fire and lost her senses when she heard his cries.
He sent her to the altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary to pray and went to the oven with a large group of people; although all the wood was burnt, the child was taken out with hardly a trace of burn.
The miracle was so obvious that the neighbours carried the child in triumph to the church where his mother was praying, and the canons of the church dressed him in white in honour of the Blessed Virgin. Since then, many afflicted people have invoked the Mother of Heaven from there.
Poem on San Diego de Alcala
How good it is to see, dear Diego, that you studied theology in the city of Alcala, since it is such a worthy subject that it can be taught with passion!
For thou art very wondrous, when two professors teach in one day, of all things that are wicked, thou knowest how to solve them quickly.
As a theologian you have been admirably set forth in a book, and through its pages all science can speak, and of all the wonderful things you know, as a remarkable philosopher you make yourself understood like a loaf of roses.
In this video you can see the song of joy to San Diego de Alcala, which is very beautiful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNr8Ny47rRk
Sanctuary of San Diego de Alcala
He died on 12 November 1463 in the Franciscan monastery of Alcalá, with a cross on his heart, repeating the words of the Good Friday hymn:
“Dulce lignum, dulce ferrum, dulce pondus sustinet” (precious wood, precious nails, precious the weight they bear).
Months passed before Brother Diego could be buried, so many people came to venerate his remains. Not only did his body remain intact, but it emitted a pleasant odour.
After his burial in the Franciscan church of Alcalá de Henares, amazing miracles continued to occur at his tomb. Pope Sixtus V, himself a Franciscan, canonised Brother Diego in 1588.
Saint Diego is the special heavenly patron of the Franciscan Friars. His feast day is 7 November.
Here is a video about the Sanctoral of San Diego de Alcala:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqeZOSKX_tI
Mission San Diego de Alcala, California
Mission San Diego Alcala is an active Catholic parish church as well as a historical attraction. The mission is located on a small hill that can be climbed and has a large parking area surrounded by palm trees.
You enter the mission through a small gift shop where you can buy a map of the mission. Once inside the mission, you come to a large courtyard with a fountain in the middle.
The beautiful mission church is just to the left of the courtyard as you enter. Near the church are displays of the priests’ first dwellings. It is amazing how they lived with such simple things.
The church has mass at noon and 5pm. The architecture of the church is interesting and the interior is beautiful but simple.
You have to walk through the centre of the church to get to the mission gardens. The gardens are relatively small, but a walkway allows you to stroll and meditate, pray or simply enjoy the scents and beauty of the flowers, as well as observe the three mission bells on the tower wall, gaze at the crucifix on the wall or spend a few moments sitting in the shade or admire the wish of St Francis.
The peace and respectful silence lends itself naturally to prayer and meditation. This is a great place to find some peace in an otherwise hectic day.
Watch this video to learn more about the San Diego de Alcala Mission in California:
