Saint Anthony of Padua
| Saint Anthony of Padua | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Doctor of the Church | |
| Born | ca. 1195 in Lisbon |
| Died | 13 June 1231 in Padua |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church |
| Canonized | May 30, 1232, Spoleto, Italy
by Pope Gregory IX |
| Major shrine | Basilica of St. Antony in Padua, Italy |
| Feast | June 13 |
| Attributes | book; bread; Infant Jesus; lily |
| Patronage | animals; asses; barrenness; Brazil; Beaumont, Texas; elderly people; faith in the Blessed Sacrament; Ferrazzano, Italy; fishermen; Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land; harvests; horses; Lisbon; lost articles; lower animals; mail; mariners; American Indians; Masbate, Philippines; Cavite, Philippines; Sibulan, Negros Oriental, Philippines; oppressed people; Padua, Italy; poor people; Portugal; pregnant women; sailors; seekers of lost articles; shipwrecks; starvation; sterility; swineherds; Tigua Indians; travel hostesses; travellers; watermen |
Saint Anthony of Padua (ca. 1195 – June 13, 1231) also venerated as Saint Anthony of Lisbon, is a Catholic saint who was born in Lisbon, Portugal, as Fernando Martins de Bulhões to a wealthy family and who died in Padua, Italy.
A short, chubby man, Anthony was a profound theologian. His life-long desire was to bring conversions of Moslems to Christianity. At about the age of 25, Anthony set sail to begin his ministry, but fell ill during shortly after arriving in Morocco and was forced to return home to heal. However, his ship was blown off course and Anthony landed in Sicily, where he discovered that he was also and brilliant preacher. Combining his skills with the gift of miracles, Anthony was recognized as one of the greatest foes of herecies of his time. He converted many of these heretics, rich and poor, common and noble, to the faith, and was given the title "Hammer of the Heretics."
Today, Saint Anthony of Padua is venerated today as one of the greatest Franciscan saints. Canonized in 1232, his Feast Day is June 13, and he is considered by the Catholic Church to be the patron saint of barren women, lost articles, the poor, and travelers.
Life
Anthony was born in a very rich family who wanted him to become a noble, but these were not his wishes. His family arranged sound education for him at the local cathedral school. Against the wishes of his family, Ferdinand entered the Augustinian Abbey of St. Vincent on the outskirts of Lisbon. The Canons Regular of St Augustine, of which he was now a member, were famous for their dedication to scholarly pursuits. Ferdinand studied Scripture and the Latin classics. Ferdinand was constantly visited by friends and relatives, bringing embarrassing gifts and news from their social world which disturbed him. His studies were suffering and there he found no peace. He persuaded his superiors to transfer him to the Augustinian Santa Cruz Monastery (Abbey of the Holy Cross) in Coimbra, then the capital of Portugal, and continued his studies.
After his ordination, Ferdinand was placed in charge of hospitality in his abbey. In this role, in 1219, he came in contact with five Franciscans who were on their way to Morocco to preach to the Muslims there. Ferdinand was strongly attracted to the simple Gospel lifestyle of the Franciscan friars. In February 1220, news arrived that the five Franciscans had been martyred in Morocco. Ferdinand meditated on the heroism of these Franciscans. He wanted to obey God's call to leave everything and follow Him. Ferdinand obtained permission from his superiors to join the Franciscan order. In the summer of 1220, he was invested with the Franciscan habit and began to learn the teachings of their founder, Francis of Assisi. He took the new name of Anthony when he joined the Order of Friars Minor in honor of Saint Anthony the Great, to whom the Franciscan hermitage where he was living was dedicated.
Shortly after, Anthony set off to Morocco with another friar. He intended to die preaching the Gospel there. However, upon his arrival in Morocco, he fell so ill he had no choice but to return home. On the return trip to Portugal, his ship was driven by storm upon the coast of Sicily and he landed at Messina. From Sicily, he made his way to Assisi and sought admission into a monastery in Italy, but met with difficulty on account of his sickly appearance. He was finally assigned, out of pure compassion, to the rural hospice of San Paolo near Forli, outside Bologna, Italy, a choice made after considering his poor health. There he appears to have lived as a hermit and was put to work in the kitchen.
One day, on the occasion of an ordination, when a great many visiting Dominican monks were present, there was some misunderstanding over who should preach. The Franciscans naturally expected that one of the Dominicans would occupy the pulpit, for they were renowned for their preaching; the Dominicans, on the other hand, had come unprepared, thinking that a Franciscan would be the homilist.
In this quandary, the head of the hermitage, who had no one among his own humble friars suitable for the occasion, called upon Anthony, whom he suspected was most qualified, and instructed him to speak whatever the Holy Spirit should put into his mouth. Anthony objected but was overruled, and his sermon created a deep impression. Not only his rich voice and arresting manner, but the entire theme and substance of his discourse and his moving eloquence, held the attention of his hearers.
At that point, Anthony was commissioned by Brother Gratian, the minister provincial, to preach the Gospel throughout Lombardy, a region in northern Italy. From then on his skills were used to the utmost by the Church. Occasionally he took another post, as a teacher, for instance, at the universities of Montpellier and Toulouse—both in southern France—but it was as a preacher that Anthony revealed his supreme gift.
In 1226, after attending the Franciscan chapter at Arles, France, and preaching in the French region of Provence, Anthony returned to Italy and served as envoy from the general chapter to Pope Gregory IX. At the papal court, his preaching was hailed as a "jewel case of the Bible" and he was commissioned to produce "Sermons for Feast Days."
Many miracles have been attributed to Saint Anthony, most of them taking place in Padua (and thus his name). One of the most noted of the miracles concerned a young man by the name of Leonardo. One day, in a moment of uncontrollable anger, Leonardo kicked his mother. Truly repentant for this sin, Leonardo confessed to Anthony, who told Leonardo that the foot of a man who kicks his mother deserves to be cut off. Leonardo, taking these words to heart, returned home to amputate his foot. When Anthony learned what happened, he immediately went to Leonardo and miraculously healed him.
Anthony was elected minister provincial of the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna on May 30; the friar, held out against the relaxation of Franciscan austerities. Anthony became ill with dropsy and, in 1231, went to the woodland retreat at Camposanpiero with two other friars for a respite. There Anthony lived in a cell built for him under the branches of a walnut tree. Saint Anthony died on June 13, 1231 at the Poor Clare convent at Arcella on the way back to Padua at the age of 36.
When he died, it is said that the children cried in the streets, that all the bells of the churches rang of their own accord, and that angels came to earth to ring the bells for the death of the saint. He is buried in a chapel (once a church, now enclosed by the current edifice) of the large Basilica of Saint Anthony in Padua. The house where he was born in Lisbon was turned into a church, the Igreja de Santo António de Lisboa. St. Anthony also loved children.
Sermon by Saint Anthony
- "Love" (given on the Sunday after Pentecost)
- God is love," we read today at the beginning of the Epistle. (I John iv, 8) As love is the chief of all the virtues, we shall treat of it here at some length in a special way . . . .
- If God loved us to the point that he gave us his well-beloved Son, by whom he made all things, we too should ourselves love one another. "I give you," he says, "a new commandment, that ye love one another (John 13:34)." . . . We have, says St. Augustine, four objects to love. The first is above us: it is God. The second is ourselves. The third is round about us: it is our neighbor. The fourth is beneath us: it is our body. The rich man loved his body first and above everything. Of God, of his neighbor, of his soul, he had not a thought; that was why he was damned.
- Our Body, says St. Bernard, should be to us like a sick person entrusted to our care. We must refuse it many of the worthless things it wants; on the other hand, we must forcefully compel it to take the helpful remedies repugnant to it. We should treat it not as something belonging to us but as belonging to Him who bought it at so higha price, and whom we must glorify in our body (I Corinthians 6:20). We should love our body in the fourth and last place, not as the goal of our life but as an indispensable instrument of it.
- — From Lives of Saints, John J. Crawley & Co., 1954
Legacy
One of the most beloved of saints, his images and statues are ubiquitous. Proclaimed a Doctor of the Church on January 16, 1946, he is sometimes called the "Evangelical Doctor." He is especially invoked for the recovery of things lost ("Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony, please come around. Something is lost that can't be found.").
On January 27, 1907 in Beaumont, Texas, a church was dedicated and named in honor of St. Anthony of Padua. The church was later designated a cathedral in 1966 with the formation of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Beaumont, but was not formally consecrated. On April 28, 1974, St. Anthony Cathedral was dedicated and consecrated by Bishop Warren Boudreaux. In 2006 Pope Benedict XVI granted St. Anthony Cathedral the designation of minor basilica. St. Anthony Cathedral Basilica celebrated its hundreth anniversary on January 28, 2007.
Seventeenth-century Spanish missionaries came across a small Native American community along what was then known as the Yanaguana River on the feast day of Saint Anthony and renamed the river and eventually a mission built nearby in his honor. This mission would at first become the focal point of a small community that would eventually grow in size and scope to become the city of San Antonio.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Attwater, Donald, & John, Catherine Rachel. The Penguin Dictionary of Saints, Penguin Books, 1993. ISBN 0-140-51312-4.
- Hopkins, Nancy. Saint Anthony of Padua: The Story of His Life & Popular Devotions, Saint Anthony Press and Franciscan, 1993. ISBN 978-0867162028
- Stoddard, Charles Warren. St. Anthony: The Wonder-Worker of Padua, Tan Books & Publishing, 1971. ISBN 978-0895550392
- Wintz, Jack. Anthony of Padua: Saint of the People, Saint Anthony Messenger Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0867165838
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