Sub-Saharan Africa, 04 April, 2024 / 11:15 am (ACI Africa).
On April 4, the Catholic Church honors Saint Isidore of Seville, a bishop and scholar who helped the Church preserve its own traditions, and the heritage of western civilization, in the early middle ages.
In 653, less than two decades after his death, a council of bishops in Spain acclaimed St. Isidore as “an illustrious teacher of our time and the glory of the Catholic Church.” He is regarded as being among the last of the early Church Fathers, who combined Christian faith and classical education.
Isidore was born in Cartagena, Spain, in approximately 560. Three of his siblings – his brothers Leander and Fulgentius, who became bishops, and his sister Florentina, a nun – were later canonized as saints along with him.
As the Archbishop of Seville, Leander was an important influence on his younger brother, helping Isidore develop a commitment to study, prayer, and intense work for the good of the Church. Isidore, in turn, joined his brother's mission to convert the generally heretical Visigoths who had invaded Spain.
When St. Leander died around the year 600, his brother succeeded him as Seville's archbishop. Isidore inherited his brother's responsibility for Church affairs in an intense period of change, as the institutions of the Western Roman Empire gave way to the culture of the barbarian tribes.
