Sebastián del Prado came from a farming background in La Gudiña in Galicia and at the age of 15 wandered into Spain in search of work. Trusted always for his honesty and integrity, he worked as a farmer and tended the vines in Andalusía, while at the same time helping the poor and the sick around him. In 1533 he emigrated to Mexico where he found work rounding up wild cattle which he then trained to pull a cart. He was the first Mexican cowboy. He teamed up with a carpenter and they built some oxcarts and went into the transportation business. He worked at that business for 18 years and took those carts to many places and where there were no roads, he made his own roads, in fact some 960km of them. By now a rich man, Sebastián retired and moved to farms outside Mexico City where his reputation for prayer and charitable works spread widely. At the age of 60, he entered a virginal marriage. When his first wife died shortly afterwards, he entered a similar second marriage; his second wife also died young. Desiring greater holiness, he wished to serve in a monastery of Poor Clares and donated all his worldly goods to them in 1573. In his 70s, he was admitted to the novitiate in the Church of S. Francesco in Mexico City where he was professed. In 1576 he moved to the convent of Aparicio in Puebla de Los Ángeles where working as gardener, cook, infirmarian, porter and sacristan, he spent the rest of his life, practising mortifications and renowned for his holiness and love for the needy. He died at the age of 98, his eyes fixed on the Crucifix. He was beatified in 1789 by Pius VI. He is regarded as the patron of transport in Mexico.
First Reading: Eccles. 3: 17-24; Gospel: Mt. 25: 31-40
