32nd Week of Ordinary Time C – Thursday – Saint Diego of Alcala, Franciscan
My dear brothers and sisters, today around the world we celebrate in the Franciscan Order a great Franciscan saint by the name of Diego—Diego of Alcalá. He was such a saint that one of the cities in California was named after him—San Diego. The missionaries in the 1500s and 1600s who evangelized North America were mostly Franciscans, and they gave Franciscan names to many cities: Corpus Christi, Texas; San Bernardino; San Antonio; San Francisco; and many others. Even Los Angeles—Los Ángeles de la Porciúncula—is named after the Mother of God, Our Lady of the Angels.