The Saint Who Could Not Be Hidden

Born into a noble Lisbon family in 1195, Fernando Martins de Bulhões abandoned wealth and scholarship to join the ragged brotherhood of Francis of Assisi — dreaming of martyrdom in Africa. Fate had other plans. Shipwrecked, ill, and unknown, he was asked to preach one afternoon almost by accident. What came out of him stunned a continent. For the next decade he crossed Italy and France like a force of nature, drawing crowds of thousands, confronting the powerful, defending the poor — and working miracles that made him a legend while he still breathed. He died at thirty-five, exhausted and radiant, in a convent on the edge of Padua. The city's children wept in the streets. He was declared a saint within the year.