Today is the memorial of St. Anthony of Padua, Doctor of the Church, Franciscan preacher, and the saint everyone calls when they’ve misplaced their keys. But Anthony’s patronage of lost things runs deeper than household objects. He was a finder of souls, a retriever of doctrine, a man who helped thirteenth-century Europe recover what it had misplaced: the Gospel itself.
Who St. Anthony of Padua was
Fernando Martins de Bulhões was born in Lisbon around 1195 into a wealthy Portuguese family. He became an Augustinian canon at fifteen, then switched to the newly founded Franciscans at twenty-five after seeing the relics of five Franciscan martyrs brought back from Morocco. He took the name Anthony. He sailed for Morocco to preach to the Muslims but fell gravely ill and had to return. A storm blew his ship off course to Sicily, then north to Italy, where he ended up at a general chapter meeting in Assisi in 1221. Francis of Assisi was there. Anthony stayed.
He was assigned to a remote hermitage and expected to spend his life in obscurity. Then, at an ordination ceremony, no one had prepared a homily. Anthony was asked to speak extemporaneously. He opened his mouth and revealed a staggering command of Scripture, theology, and rhetoric. Francis sent him to preach throughout northern Italy and southern France. For the next decade, Anthony preached to enormous crowds, converted heretics, defended the faith against the Cathars, and earned his nickname: the Hammer of Heretics.
He died in Padua on June 13, 1231, at age thirty-five. He was canonized less than a year later. In 1946, Pope Pius XII declared him a Doctor of the Church, the Evangelical Doctor. His tongue, discovered incorrupt when his tomb was opened in 1263, is still venerated in Padua.
What he’s known for
Anthony is known for three things: his preaching, his learning, and his miracles. The preaching came first. He could hold a crowd for hours without notes, weaving Scripture, doctrine, and moral exhortation into a seamless whole. He preached in the open air because churches couldn’t hold the crowds. He preached to fish once, according to legend, when the heretics refused to listen. The fish raised their heads above water and listened.
The miracles followed. He healed the sick, raised the dead, bilocated, and levitated during Mass. The infant Jesus appeared to him in a vision, which is why he’s depicted holding the Christ child. The lily he carries represents purity. The open book is Scripture, which he knew by heart and could quote verbatim in debate. He was a walking concordance, a living library, a medieval search engine for the Word of God.
His patronage of lost things comes from a story: a novice stole Anthony’s psalter (a precious manuscript in an age before printing). Anthony prayed. The novice was seized with remorse, returned the book, and rejoined the order. From that incident grew the tradition: Tony, Tony, look around, something’s lost and must be found.
For today
Pray the traditional invocation once today, but not for car keys. Ask Anthony to help you find something you’ve actually lost: a habit of daily prayer you dropped, a relationship you’ve let drift, a sense of God’s presence you used to feel. Name the thing. Ask him to intercede. Then take one small step toward recovering it. Call the person. Open the Bible. Sit in silence for five minutes. Anthony found souls by preaching the Gospel with precision and fire. You find what you’ve lost by looking, not by wishing.
Carry his name through the day.
