B. Isidoro de Loor

 

Blessed Isidoro De Loor di San Giuseppe was born on April 15, 1881 in Vràsene, a town in East Flanders, diocesane of Ghent (Belgium).

Son of farmers, he found his joy in working in the fields, in contemplative prayer and in the practice of the Via Crucis. An exemplary young man, he was a diligent catechist and was loved in the parish.

At the age of 26 he entered the Passionist novitiate of Ere and professed his vows as a religious brother on 13 September 1903.

He gave his humble and generous service in various communities by leading a life of intense prayer and much penance. For his charity and simplicity, combined with diligence and recollection of spirit, for his sincere and serene virtue, for his constant dedication, for his humble and silent presence, he appeared admirable both to the brothers and to the faithful who knew him.

He always sought God's will; he abandoned himself totally. Modulating his day on it, with it and in it, he found peace and serenity.

It was the program of his life expressed on the eve of the religious vows. “I, he wrote, am going to make my profession solely to fulfill God's will”.

This passionate research is the attitude that most reconnects him to the founder who recommended "total transformation into divine consent".

Isidore was called by all "the good brother ... The brother of God's will".

In 1911 his right eye, suffering from an incurable disease, was removed.

The disease, as expected, degenerated into bowel cancer. Isidore did not lose his peace and wrote: “If God has so disposed I submit without complaints and without groans. All that God wants. We must do his will in everything. Alone I could not bear this suffering, but with the Lord it is fine. In spirit, I am extraordinarily happy with my condition. We must accept our sufferings in union with Jesus, the model for us of abandonment to the will of the Father. I only wish to sacrifice myself totally for the good of souls and the growth of devotion to Jesus crucified”.

Worn out by pleurisy and cancer after a month of excruciating pain experienced as an opportunity to conform ever more fully to the Crucifix, he died on 6 October 1916 at the age of 35. John Paul II declared him blessed on September 30, 1984.