Bl. Sebastian de Aparicio y Pardo

 For the letter 'S' tonight I am sharing the story of Blessed Sebastian of Aparicio. 

Sebastian was born in 1502 in the Galician region of Spain. He was the son of poor but pious peasants who raised him in faith and taught him his prayers. As a child he tended sheep and cattle. He had no schooling and was illiterate. By his own account, he was saved in a miraculous way during an outbreak of the plague in 1514. Due to his illness, his parents were forced to quarantine him from the community. They built a hidden shelter for him in the woods where they left him. While he was lying there helpless, a she-wolf found his hiding place; she sniffed him and then bit and licked an infected spot on his body before running off. He began to heal from that moment.

When Sebastian was older, he decided to seek work outside the region in order to help support his family and provide dowries for his sisters. He traveled around Spain doing agricultural work. Eventually, he decided to improve his fortunes by traveling to the newly conquered Americas. Sebastian sailed from Spain in 1533, landing in Veracruz later that year. He moved inland to Puebla de Los Angeles, the second largest city in Colonial Mexico. He cultivated indigenous maize and European wheat and was one of the first  Spaniards to raise and train cattle to use in plow farming and transportation. He got permission to round up wild cattle which he then trained to move a cart. As a result, he is considered the first Mexican "cowboy" or charro. He realized the difficulty in transporting supplies in Mexico, which before the conquest had difficult terrain for moving goods. He conceived the idea for building a road from Puebla to Veracruz and obtained permission from colonial authorities to start building the roads that would connect the Spanish communities of Mexico.

As he prospered and became a wealthy man, Sebastian began to share his knowledge. He taught the indigenous people and his fellow Spaniards how to build wagons, domesticate horses and oxen and use a plow in farming. He never lost his commitment to his faith and lived a very ascetic lifestyle. He gave much of his wealth away to the poor. In his 70s, he felt the call to the consecrated life and often visited the Franciscan Friars. There were concerns about him being able to follow the life of the Franciscans, but he applied to be admitted as a lay brother. He received the religious habit in 1574 at the age of 72. At the friary, he held a number of offices: cook, sacristan, gardener and porter. He was then appointed as quaestor - the one assigned to travel through the community seeking alms and food for the upkeep of the friars. 

Sebastian died at the friary at the age of 98 in 1600. When his body was exhumed two years later, it was found to be incorrupt. His incorrupt body can still be seen at the Church of San Francisco in Puebla. He is the patron saint of transportation in Mexico. His feast day is February 25.