Saint Who?
Saints Who Worked in Agriculture
Saint Felix of Cantalice
Religious († 1587)Feast: May 18
Felix Porri was born in Italy in 1515. His playfellows dubbed him “Felix the Saint.” He worked as a shepherd and then a farmhand. Though he wanted to become a religious, he could not leave his employer. Then one day, Felix was run over by a team of runaway oxen dragging a plow. He ought to have been killed, but survived uninjured. This miraculous survival motivated the farmer to let him go.
Felix, then twenty-eight, joined the Capuchins and traveled to Rome, where he served for many years as a quaestor or beggar for his community. He used to say as he set out to beg: “Let us go, my brother, with rosary in hand, our eyes to the ground and our spirit in heaven.” Much of his day was spent begging, and at night he would spend many hours before the tabernacle. An enormously successful fundraiser, he was asked to help an entire city when famine struck.
A jovial soul, Felix became known as “Brother Deo gratias,” after one of his favorite prayers. The story is told that he once reconciled two duelists by persuading them to both pray, Deo gratias—“Thanks be to God.” He died on Pentecost in 1587.
Heavenly Father, bless those who help
to endow good works with the joy
and prayers of Saint Felix.
