Blessed Gonçalo de Lagos

Gundisalvus of Lagos, O.E.S.A. (Portuguese: Gonçalo de Lagos; c. 1360 – 15 October 1422) was a Portuguese Catholic priest and Augustinian friar. Gundisalvus was the prior of several Augustinian houses, among them the important Convent of Our Lady of Grace in Lisbon (the seat of the Province of Portugal of the Augustinians). He was a theologian and preacher of some repute, who concentrated his catechetical work on children, as well as the illiterate and the uneducated. A gifted scribe and artist, he was also known to have illuminated liturgical books and to have composed plainsong pieces. Gundisalvus was of humble origin, born in the city of Lagos, in the Algarve, in an uncertain date around 1360. Having shown a vocation for religious life from an early age, he joined the Order of Hermits of Saint Augustine at the Convent of Our Lady of Grace in Lisbon c. 1380, at around age 20. By 1394, he was the prior of the Convent of Saint Lawrence in Miragaia, Lourinhã; by 1404 he was the superior of the important Convent of Our Lady of Grace in Lisbon, and by 1408 he was governing the Convent of Our Lady of Grace in Santarém, Portugal. From 1412 and until his death in 1422, he was the prior of the Convent of Our Lady of Grace in Torres Vedras. As a superior, he was known to perform menial jobs in a conscious effort to humble himself in imitation of Christ. His relics remain interred in the church of the former Augustinian convent in Torres Vedras. The earliest hagiographic works about Gundisalvus of Lagos are a set of three texts written between the late 15th century and the 17th century, by João de França de Brito, Frei Aleixo de Menezes (1559–1617), and Frei António da Purificação (1601–1658). His reputation for sanctity shortly after his death is evidenced by the fact that the city of Torres Vedras named him as its "Defender and Patron" as early as 1495, and the same was done by the city of Lagos a couple of years later.