Memorial of Saint
Anthony of Padua, priest
(1 Kings 19:9a.11-16; Matthew 5:27-32)
This year Billy Graham will turn ninety-six years old. When he eventually dies, he will be duly remembered
as the greatest preacher of his time.
His world-wide “Crusades” helped thousands of people come to a personal
relationship with Jesus. He became known
as a social reformer and a friend of presidents. What Billy Graham was to the twentieth
century, St. Anthony of Padua was to the thirteenth.
Anthony of Padua was actually Anthony of Lisbon, the
place of his birth, and is evidently called so in his native Portugal. As an adolescent, he joined a religious society
and studied theology. Later he was
ordained and transferred to the Franciscan Order. Then he was sent to Italy to become one of
the most illustrious preachers of his time.
He died at only thirty-six years of age but by then had earned the
reputation not only of a master preacher but also of a champion of the poor and
a tireless worker among heretics.
Most people think of St. Anthony as the patron of finding
lost objects. We would be better to
think of him as a searcher of the Word of God. Although legends vary, it is said that he is
often pictured with the Christ Child in his arms as a substitute for the
Scriptures which he studied fervently.
