Feast Day

September 22

The Church celebrates Thomas of Villanova on September 22.

Thomas of Villanova

Thomas of Villanova

1488 ADSeptember 8, 1555 AD

Thomas of Villanova gave away his clothes as a boy and the furnishings of his episcopal palace as archbishop. Charles V exclaimed after hearing him preach: 'This monsignor can move even the stones!' Known as the 'Father of the Poor,' this Augustinian archbishop arrived in Valencia to find a neglected see and proceeded to reform it parish by parish — dying in his patched friar's habit in 1555.