Saint Isidore of Seville, Patron Saint of the Internet

In 2016, Francine and I visited the tomb of Saint Isidore of Seville. Although he is entombed in Spain, it is strangely not in the city of Seville, where he was bishop from AD 601 to 636. No, due to the vagaries of history, the majority of his bones are now in in a silver casket at the high altar of the Basílica de San Isidoro in León.

Today is his feast day. And what a saint!

He was born in Carthage to a strongly Catholic family – his older brother  Leander of Seville was his predecessor as Archbishop of Seville, his younger brother, Fulgentius of Cartagena, was Bishop of Astigi, and his sister, Florentina of Cartagena, was a Benedictine nun. 

As bishop, he was a protector of monks, a pastor who welded his post-Roman and Visigothic people into one culture, and a champion of orthodoxy who almost single-handedly eradicated the Arian heresy from Hispania.

Towards the end of his life, he attempted to summarize the whole of classical learning in an encyclopedic volume known as the Etymologiæ. Some classical works are today known only through the excerpts that Saint Isidore preserved.

This work became the essential textbook for much of the Medieval period, and in many ways is the forerunner of both the encyclopedia and the database – the wiki of his day. He is therefore these days often invoked as the patron saint of the Internet.

Prayer before Logging on to the Internet

ALMIGHTY and eternal God,
who hast created us in Thy image
and bade us to seek after all that is good, true and beautiful,
especially in the divine person of Thy only-begotten Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ,
grant we beseech Thee that,
through the intercession of Saint Isidore, bishop and doctor,
during our journeys through the internet,
we will direct our hands and eyes
only to that which is pleasing to Thee
and treat with charity and patience
all those souls whom we encounter.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

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