Confessor Michael de Sanctis

Michael de Sanctis, also known as Michael of the Saints and in Spanish as Miguel de los Santos, was born Miguel Argemir on 29 September 1591 in Vic, a town in Catalonia then often called Vich in Castilian. He came from a Christian family of that region. Traditional accounts state that from early childhood he was drawn to the monastic life and that as a small boy he told those around him he intended to become a monk. After the death of his parents he was placed in the care of two uncles who were priests. He was later apprenticed to a merchant, yet he maintained practices of piety and did not abandon his resolve to enter religion.

At about the age of twelve he entered the monastery of the Order of the Most Holy Trinity, the Trinitarians, in Barcelona. That order, founded in the late twelfth century for the ransom of captives, existed in his day in both unreformed and reformed branches. Seeking a stricter life, he transferred to the Discalced Trinitarians. He received the habit in Madrid in 1607 and made his religious profession at Alcalá. After formation he was ordained a priest. He served in several houses of the order and was twice elected superior of the Discalced Trinitarian monastery at Valladolid, an indication of the regard in which he was held despite his youth.

His lasting reputation rests on asceticism and on devotion to the Eucharist rather than on high ecclesiastical office. Hagiographical sources describe severe personal penances and a particular attachment to the Blessed Sacrament. He is presented in the tradition as a mystic who experienced ecstasies, especially in connection with the Mass. He remained a religious of a reformed mendicant order, not a diocesan bishop, and he was neither pope nor patriarch. His short adult life unfolded in the Spain of the early seventeenth century, within the observant wing of the Trinitarians.

He died at Valladolid on 10 April 1625, at the age of thirty-three. A cult developed in his order and in Spain. Pope Pius VI beatified him in 1779, and Pope Pius IX canonized him in 1862. His feast day is 10 April. In later Catholic devotion he has been invoked as a patron of those suffering from cancer, and he is also associated with his native city of Vic. The historical record of his life is that of a Counter-Reformation religious remembered for interior prayer, Trinitarian and Eucharistic piety, and early death, rather than for public controversy or high office.