Bl. Sebastián de Aparicio

Sebastián de Aparicio was the son of Spanish peasants, born in 1502. At thirty-one he sailed to Mexico. He worked in the fields and then built roads and ran wagon teams, including a road of about 750 km from Mexico City to the silver mines of Zacatecas that took ten years and careful negotiation with the indigenous peoples along the route. He became a rich farmer and rancher.

At sixty he married a young woman without a dowry so she would have a respectable life, by agreement never living as husband and wife. When she died he did the same again. At seventy-two he gave everything away and became a Franciscan brother. For twenty-five years he collected alms for the large friary at Puebla and was known as the "Angel of Mexico." He died in 1600, aged ninety-eight, and was beatified in 1789. He is a patron of travellers.

Sebastián de Aparicio was beatified in 1789 by Pius VI.

Beatification allows public veneration, usually in a particular region or religious family. Canonization extends it to the whole Church.