Our Parish
Rectory: 42 Muñoz Rivera St.
Sabana Grande, PR 00637
SUNDAY MASS SCHEDULE
Saturday Evening: 7:30 PM
Sunday: 7:00 AM - 10:00 AM
7:00 PM
WEEKDAY MASS SCHEDULE
Monday to Fridays: 7:00 AM
Thursdays: 7:30 PM
CONFESSIONS
Half hour before Mass.
THE HISTORY OF SAINT ISIDRO TEMPLE
The Church of Saint Isidro Labrador, painted of ochre yellow, rises on perrons in the Plaza Busigó of Sabana Grande. Two white toscana columns with smooth fust and entasis flank the main door to each side of the oriental main facade to the west. These columns sustain an architrave and a crowned fronton of white cornices. A small and exquisite vitral in quatrefoil, with the image of our patron, Saint Isidro Labrador, gives life to the facade. On the front side rises the tower of the clock, that was brought directly from France, and was installed on August 4, 1864. (Carrera, “Historical Features of Sabana Grande"). Subsequent to the tower, is the bell tower, where the bells in each Eucaristic celebration chime and bend with solemn tone during the funerals.
In the North and South sides are the lateral facades with two toscana pilasters superposed one to the other to each side of the doors, whereas, a blind eardrum crowns the thresholds of the same.
In their interior, six toscana columns and pointed arcs delimit the central ship of the ceiling vaulted in wood, in the style of the keel of a negrero boat. This vaulted ship leads to the altarpiece and the altar in the greater chapel. An arc of average point reveals the gorgeous altarpiece in wood and gold bread ornamented with four corinthian columns that flank the holy patrons of the town of Sabana Grande, Saint Isidro Labrador and his wife Saint Maria de la Cabeza. A beautiful entablature overmounts the columns and exhibits an exquisite friso with certain degree of abstraction in its embossment. I deciphed that some of the figures of the embossment repeat the silhouette of the small quatrefoil of the facade in the west side. "Originally, in the center of the altarpiece, a painted oil curtain flanked the manifestador and in front of it rested a small cross of the Circle of the Espadas." (Vidal, 153).
Nowadays, the painted curtains do not exist and the cross is not in its place. In the fronton of the altarpiece, the image of the Virgin of Bethlehem, humbly presides in the vaulted niche which outstands by an arc of average point that, like an angular stone, has a clam shell carved in cedar wood with gold bread. This beautiful sculptural jewel of neoclassic influence hugely shines under the cupola with lantern and on squinches in the apse.
"Don Tiburcio Espada, natural of the Villa of San German and who was a bookbinder, turner, architect and self-taught sculptor made the altarpiece of the catholic church and images of the altars in the churches of San German, Yauco, Peñuelas and San Sebastián del Pepino." (Valentin, 1993). "In fact, today, we still conserve the original four columns and the images of the holy patrons of the altarpiece of Don Tiburcio." (B. Sanabria, October 23, 2005). "Several documents of the Historical File of San German confirm, that, Tiburcio de la Espada, is the author of the Sabaneño altarpiece, between the end of the decade of 1840 and beginning of 1850, very near his death in 1852." (Vidal, 152). The present altarpiece is a quite faithful reproduction and an integration of the pieces saved of the original one by Don Tiburcio. "The following persons, the architect, Carlos J. Ralat, the restores, Don Angel D. Santiago and Doña Beatriz Nazario de Sanabria, the assistants of restoration, Don Carlos Sanabria and Don Jose Torres Roberty, the bricklayer, Adam Vega, the master builder and carpenter, Tony Rodriguez, the assistants of carpentry, Julio Cruz, son and Joel Linares, cabinetmakers, Don Eustaquio González and Don Angel González and the director of the project, Don Rafael David Valentin, collaborated in this task." (Valentin, 1993).
"The holy patrons, Saint Isidro Labrador and Saint Maria de las Cabezas, is attributed to Tiburcio’s father, Don Felipe de la Espada, because he was the only sculptur in the area then, and due to the similarity of these images with the characteristics of the Virgin of Bethlehem, which officially have been documented as it was built. These saints appear in inventory since 1808 in Sabana Grande, according to evidence in the First Parochial Book of 1808. It is possible that Don Felipe was inspired by a Spanish lithography stamp of these holy patrons made by J.M. Matéu in the XIX century. The Virgin of Bethlehem was commissioned to Don Felipe in 1813 by His Excellency Bishop of Puerto Rico, Don Juan Alejo de Arizmendi, close to the date of December 15, of that same year when the prelate visited Sabana Grande for the first time. The image costed about 120 Spanish pesos, that took place in two terms in favor of the Sangermeño sculptor: one term of 64 pesos and the other term of 56 pesos. Don Luis Nazario de Figueroa, a Sabañeno citizen, donated this image and, in addition, 280 pesos for the decoration of the parish. This image was relocated on a shelf next to the beginning of the inner stairs of the old parochial house when in the summer of 1968 Don Tiburcio’s altarpiece was replaced with marble. In the decade of 1990, date in which the old altarpiece was reconstructed, the mentioned image recovered its original importance in the vaulted niche of the altarpiece. Nowadays, the Virgin of Bethlehem lacks the original figure of the Baby Jesus, but she exhibits a very small one of another sculptor." (Vidal, 93-96). "It was said that a parishioner out of his wits snatched the figure out of the Virgin’s hands and made it pieces." (Father Caro, April 6, 2006).
Nevertheless, that was not the first altarpiece that our church had. "The first book of accounts, of the same parish, revealed the existence in 1808, of a great rubblework altar with frontal painted wood. Few years later, in the 1813 inventory, it also appears a painted altarpiece, trimmed and custom-made to the space available, since, with extreme possibility it had been dismantled from another church and to take advantage engaged to our church. In addition, to the rubblework table and the trimmed and painted altarpiece, there was a shrine with lock and silver key, a golden manifestador, the images of the patrons, Saint Isidro Labrador and Saint Maria de la Cabeza, painted wood shelves, a painted wood frontal and lectern, a cross of average long, an altar stone and four small metal candlesticks." (Vidal, 154). "Originally the ceiling and the beams of the lateral ships were of wood." (Father Caro, October 15, 2005). "The filtrations due to the porosity of bricks and the tremor of December 8, 1875 debilitated the beams to such degree that the Municipal City Council ordered the closing of the temple." (Irizarry, "What happened in Sabana Grande in 1880"). The voracious fire of Friday, April 1, 1892 "consumed the ceiling and the beams of the lateral ships. Later, these were constructed in concrete (Father Caro, October 15, 2005). More likely at that time, the beams in bad conditions were repaired and replaced by new wood. Nevertheless, in 1935, a committee of parishioners directed a reconstruction of the temple with the assistance of popular contributions and the auspice of the bishopric. As members of the committee appears, Don Jose Antonio Castillo, Don Gregorio Sepúlveda Ambil, and many others, that their names have vanished off the inscription plate in the step of the main door that commemorates this gesture. It is of strong belief, that between the reparations that the church underwent that year, the original lateral wood ships that were replaced for the concrete ones are still conserved today. On the other hand, the black and white chessboard slabs that ennobles the floor of the church are not the originals of the time at which our temple was constructed in the the XIX century. "At first, Creole marble plates cutted by hand, paved the earth ground. With the happening of the years, the unevenness of the ground cracked many of the marble plates to such degree that economical and practical concerning solved covering the ground with concrete and topping it with slabs." (Father Caro, October 15, 2005).
It is not known with exactitude when were these slabs replaced, but still remain today. Nevertheless, it was previous to the reconstruction of 1935, since in the year of 1925, Don Jose Emilio Rodriguez Serra, grandson of Don Tiburcio, took a photo from the altarpiece in which evidended the presence of the slabs in issue. Of equal way, the majestic perrons that start from the Plaza and elevates the podio of Saint Isidro Labrador Church , originally, were of the same widening of the main door. On September 1, 1934, Don Jose A. Busigó donated the custom-made widening perrons that still remain today, according to the plate inscription recorded on the perrons.
"The parish is still the oldest construction in the town of Sabana Grande. The date of construction has not been established. Nevertheless, the landscape drawing made in 1822 by the French naturalist, Augusto Plèe, shows the church between the neighboring of houses." (Lugo Negrón, 48). With this date in mind and the article "The Foundation of Sabana Grande" of Don Aurelio Tió, evidences that in 1808, Sabana Grande had already consituted a parish, it is deduced that the structure of the church of Saint Isidro Labrador had its origins between the years of 1808 and 1822.
The use of arcs of average point, toscana columns, fronton, architrave, cupola with lantern, vaulted ships and perrons defines the neoclassic architecture that characterizes the construction of this church of modified basilical plant, because its apse is square, instead of semicircular, like in Europe, without clerestory or difference in the height of the central and lateral ships.
By: Luis Enrique IV Santaliz Ruiz
Saint Isidro Labrador
He is the patron saint of the agriculturalists of the world. His name is in honor of Saint Isidoro, a very appreciated saint in Spain.
His parents were extremely poor peasants who could not even send their son to school. In his home, they taught him to never offend God, to have a great love for his fellowbeings, and an enormous esteem for prayer and Holy Mass.
At the age of ten, orphan and alone in the world, Isidro began to work as a field laborer in agriculture helping Don Juan de Vargas, owner of a property near Madrid. There, he passed many years of his life, working the earth, cultivating and harvesting.
He married Maria Toribia, a simple peasant, who also became a saint and now called, Saint Maria de la Cabeza, ( its not because of her last name, but because her head is used in pleading processions, when there hasn’t been rain for months ).
Isidro raised very early in the morning. His workday never began without having attended the Holy Mass, reason for which several of his very envious companions accused him before his landlord for "absenteeism" and abandonment of work. Don Vargas went to observe the field and noticed that it was certain that Isidro arrived an hour later than the others ( in that time, work was from six in the morning to six in the afternoon ) but while Isidro participated in the Holy Mass, an invisible person ( an Angel ) guided his oxen and these plowed judiciously as if the own farmer was directing them.
The Moslems seized Madrid and their surroundings and the good catholics had to flee, among them our saint. He suffered for a long time what is to live where nobody knows you and where it is very difficult to obtain work and confidence in people. Every day, he remembered God’s words: "I will never abandon you", and so he trusted God and was always helped by him.
What he earned as a laborer, he distributed in three parts: one part for the temple, another part for the poor and another one for his family ( he, his wife and their son ). He, too, had a part for the birds . In full wintertime, when the ground was covered with snow, he scattered grains of wheat in the road, so that the birds could feed themselves. A certain day, they invited him to a great lunch. He took several beggars to have lunch with him. The invitator, displeased, said to him that he could only give lunch to him and not to the others. Isidro distributed his lunch between the beggars and reached for all and exceeded.
Sundays were distributed as follows: a good time in the temple, attending Mass and listening to the Word of God. Another good time visiting the poor and ill and in the evening walking in the fields with his wife and their son. But one day while they ran in the field, they left their son next to a deep well where water was fetched and in an abrupt movement of the small child , the basket turned itself and the child fell within the hole. The spouses reached to see this and both ran next to the well, but the well was very deep and they did not know how to rescue their son. Then they knelt down and prayed with great faith, suddenly, the waters in the well began rising and the basket appeared with their son without no injury. They never got tired thanking God for such admirable prodigy.
He returned later to Madrid and was hired as a worker in a property, but the other laborers, full of envy accused him before the owner that he worked less than the others dedicating himself to prayer and going to the temple. Then, the owner gave a task to each worker cultivating a land parcel. Isidro produced the double than those of the others, because Our Lord compensated his piety and generosity.
In 1130, feeling that he was going to die, he made a humble confession of his sins and recommended to his relatives and friends to love God and have charity with their fellowbeings, he died in holiness. After 43 years of his death, in 1163 his body was removed from the tomb and found incorrupt, as if he just died. The people considered this a miracle. Shortly, King Felipe III became seriously ill and the doctors said that he would die of that disease. Then they removed the rests of Saint Isidro from the temple to where they had taken him when they transferred his rests from the cementery. As soon as his rests left the temple, the king had no more fever and when the saint’s rests arrived next to the King the disease stopped completely. Because of this miracle, the king interceded before the Extreme Pontiff so that the humble farmer be declared saint, and by this and many other miracles, the Pope canonized him in 1622 together with Saint Teresa of Jesus, Saint Ignacious of Loyola, Saint Francis Javier and Saint Felipe Neri. His festivity is celebrated on May 15.
SOME OF HIS MIRACLES:
*Other farmers told the landlord that Isidro did not make his task, because he prayed instead of working. Don Juan de Vargas was going to see if this was so to scold him. Astonished, he saw angels replacing him in the plow, and in another ocasión, he saw two pairs of oxen, white as the snow, plowing to each side of Isidro.
* In certain occasion he sprouted water from a stone with a shovel.
* On Saturdays he made an additional pot of food for the poor in honor of the Virgin Mary. Once, he invited a poor man to eat of his soup and the pot filled instantaneously.
* He saved his son again (San Illán) who had drown in a well. He prayed with his wife and the water in the well began to rise and their son came out sound and save.
Saint Isidro Labrador, pray for our fields and our agriculturalists.
Saint María de la Cabeza, widow (?-1175)
Spaniard saint, wife of Saint Isidro Labrador. Maria Toribia, her true name, was born in Uceda and lived in Torrelaguna until she met Saint Isidro, who had fled to this locality after Madrid was conquered by the Almorávides, and married him. It is said that the Virgin Mary appeared to her and that she crossed the Jarama river extending her veil over the waters. The matrimony had a son (San Illán) who one day fell into a well; both spouses prayed and miraculously the waters rised up to the curbstone giving back their son sound and safe. According to some authors, she died in 1175, whereas for Nicholás de la Cruz, 1180 is the true date of her death. Her festivity is celebrated on September 9.
Saint Maria de la Cabeza, pray for us.
Saint Illán Labrador
Only a few data is known about this Templar saint, son of Saint Isidro Labrador and Saint Maria de la Cabeza. He was born in Torrelaguna where his father worked as a farmer and his mother as a sacristan or "caretaker" in a Templar church where a black virgin was venerated, Our Lady of Mercy. When Illán was born, the family moved to Madrid where one of the miracles most known of this holy marriage takes place: the resurrection of their son after he fell into a well. When Illán was of legal age his parents decided to separate to live a more holy life. Maria de la Cabeza returned to Torrelaguna where she began to perform miracles while she took care of the sacred fire in the lamp of the templar Virgin. Isidro remained in Madrid with Illán. When his father died ( of 90 years ), Illán moved to Villalba de Bolobras and he settled as a hermit next to the templar castle. There he began to perform miracles, as his father, related to the water, agriculture and the animals.
His devotion grew and is still conserved in a small town named "Illán de Vacas" in the Region of Torrijos, near Toledo (Spain). His feast day is celebrated on May 16.
