O Sant' Antonio, Prega per Noi!

 

For six happy years, at the end of the last century, I served as parochial vicar at our parish in Toronto, where one of the annual highlights was the outdoor procession with the statue of Saint Anthony, accompanied by the venerable Italian hymn, O Sant' Antonio, prega per noi! (O Saint Anthony, pray for us!) Over the years, I have also had the privilege of visiting the shrines of Saint Anthony in Lisbon and Padua, celebrating Mass both where he was born and where he is buried.

Saint Anthony was born Ferdinand de Bouillon in August 15, 1195. As a teenager, he joined the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine and grew in both holiness and learning. When the remains of the first five Franciscan Martyrs of Morocco were brought home to Coimbra for burial, Ferdinand embraced a call to similar martyrdom and was received into the new Franciscan Order in 1220, with the name Anthony. He never made it to Morocco, however, and spent the rest of his life preaching zealously in Italy and southern France, for which. he came to be called the "Hammer of Heretics," while Pope Gregory IX, who canonized him less than one year after his death,  would call him the "Living Ark of the Testament," thanks to his great learning and knowledge of Sacred Scripture. Anthony spent his last years in Padua and died there on June 13, 1231. When his tomb was opened in 1263, his tongue was found uncorrupted, which caused Saint Bonaventure, the Franciscans' seventh Minister General, to exclaim, O blessed tongue that never ceased to praise God and always taught others to bless him, now we plainly see how glorious you are in his sight!

A year ago, an accidental fear significantly damaged our New York church's precious statue of Saint Anthony. Thanks to exquisite and careful restoration efforts taking some 520 hours (see photo above), Saint Anthony's statue has been fully and successfully restored to be once again a vehicle for stirring up devotion and ardor among God's people - as Anthony himself did so powerfully during his lifetime so many centuries ago. This afternoon, Saint Anthony's restored statue will be unveiled and blessed in its new and more prominent location in the church. O Sant' Antonio, prega per noi!

From one of the Sermons of Saint Anthony:

Three things are required to prepare a meal: fire, oil, and food in the oil. The fire does not touch the food directly, and yet it warms, sterilizes, and cooks it. The fire is the Holy Spirit. The body is like the oil. And the soul is like the food. Just as the food is cooked by means of the oil from the heat of the fire, so the baptismal water, ignited by the Holy Spirit, when it touches the body externally, internally purges the soul from all sins. The Holy Spirit descended on Christ at his baptism in the River Jordan. He also descends on the baptismal font on each Christian, and by his power we become children of God's grace. So it was that Christ, both for himself and those baptized into him, heard the words, "This is my beloved Son."