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Antony,
originally named Ferdinand, was born in Portugal in the thirteenth
century. He joined the Augustinian order when he was fifteen
and then changed his name to Antony when he joined the Franciscans.
Returning from Morocco on missionary work, his ship lost its
course and he landed in southern Italy. He met St. Francis there,
who sent the young priest to preach in San Paolo. Antony was
asked to give an impromptu speech at an ordination ceremony,
encoraged to “speak whatever the Holy Spirit should put
into his mouth.” The audience was immediately in awe of
the natural charisma of the shy, corpulent friar and much impressed
with his formidable knowledge of the Bible. Antony quickly became
a renowned Holy man, who loved to preach. It was said that he
would even give sermons to fish, who, according to legend, would
stand on their tails to listen. Before long he became so popular
that he had to preach in town squares and market places to accommodate
the crowds. He exhausted himself and died on the outskirts of
Padua at the age of thirty-six. He was canonized in less than
a year and, in 1946, made a Doctor of the Church. His association
with lost objects comes from an incident in which a novice,
who took Antony’s prayer book without asking, immediately
returned it when he was visited by a “fearful apparition.”
Antony is also the patron of Portugal, travelers, shipwrecks,
barren women, infertility, spinsters, harvests, starving and
the poor. His feast day is June 13. |
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| St.
Antony
Patron St. of
Lost Objects |
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