Today is the optional memorial of St. Anthony Zaccaria, a sixteenth-century Italian priest who left medicine to treat souls. He founded the Barnabites, a religious order dedicated to reform and Eucharistic devotion, and popularized the IHS monogram you see in churches worldwide. His story matters to a 2026 reader because he saw corruption and apathy in the Church and responded not with anger but with practical holiness.
Who St. Anthony Zaccaria was
Anthony Mary Zaccaria was born in 1502 in Cremona, Italy, to a widowed mother who raised him in deep piety. He studied medicine at the University of Padua and practiced as a physician for two years before sensing a call to the priesthood. He was ordained in 1528 at age 26.
He served as a parish priest in Cremona, where he introduced reforms that scandalized the comfortable: frequent Communion, public processions with the Blessed Sacrament, evening prayer gatherings. The resistance was fierce. He was mocked, called a heretic, even physically attacked. But his parish began to change.
In 1530, he moved to Milan and founded the Clerks Regular of St. Paul, nicknamed the Barnabites after their church of St. Barnabas. The order focused on preaching, Eucharistic adoration, and the spiritual formation of clergy. He also founded a women’s order, the Angelic Sisters of St. Paul, and a lay association for married couples. He died in 1539 at age 36, worn out by his labors. He was canonized in 1897.
What he’s known for
Anthony Zaccaria is remembered for making Eucharistic devotion visible and popular in a time when many Catholics received Communion only once a year. He promoted the Forty Hours’ Devotion, a continuous period of Eucharistic adoration, which spread across Europe and remains a practice today. He encouraged frequent, even daily, Communion at a time when this was radical.
He also spread devotion to the IHS monogram, the first three letters of Jesus’ name in Greek. You’ve seen it on altar frontals, vestments, church facades. He wanted the name of Jesus on everyone’s lips and in everyone’s sight. His iconography shows him holding the IHS blazing with light, a crucifix, and sometimes a book, dressed in the black cassock of the Barnabites.
For today
If you attend Mass today or this week, arrive five minutes early and sit before the tabernacle. Ask yourself Anthony Zaccaria’s question: What remedy does this parish, this moment, this world need most? Then listen. He didn’t wait for the Church to be perfect before he served it. He brought Christ to it as it was.
Carry the IHS through your day. Let the name be your anchor.
