![\"St](\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/St%20Anthony%20of%20Padua.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAfter presenting two weeks ago the figure of Francis of\u00a0Assisi, this morning I would like to speak about another saint belonging to the\u00a0first generation of Friars Minor: Anthony of Padua or, as he is also called,\u00a0of\u00a0Lisbon, referring to his native city<\/i>. He is one of the most popular saints in\u00a0the whole Catholic Church, venerated not only in Padua, where a splendid\u00a0basilica was built, which houses his mortal remains, but in the whole world.\u00a0Dear to the faithful are images and statues that represent him with the lily,\u00a0symbol of purity, or with the Child Jesus in his arms, in memory of a\u00a0miraculous apparition mentioned in some literary sources.<\/p>\n
Anthony contributed\u00a0in a significant way to the development of Franciscan spirituality, with his\u00a0outstanding gifts of intelligence, balance, apostolic zeal and, mainly,\u00a0mystical fervor.<\/p>\n
He was born in Lisbon of a noble family around 1195 and was\u00a0baptized with the name Fernando. He entered the canons who followed the\u00a0monastic rule of St. Augustine, first in the monastery of St. Vincent in\u00a0Lisbon, and subsequently in that of the Holy Cross in Coimbra, renown cultural\u00a0center of Portugal. He dedicated himself with interest and solicitude to the\u00a0study of the Bible and of the Fathers of the Church, acquiring that theological\u00a0science that he made fructify in the activities of teaching and preaching. The\u00a0episode that marked a decisive change in his life took place in Coimbra: In\u00a01220 the relics were exposed there of the first five Franciscan missionaries\u00a0who had gone to Morocco, where they met with martyrdom. Their case aroused in\u00a0young Fernando the desire to imitate them and to advance in the way of Christian\u00a0perfection: He then asked to leave the Augustinian canons and become a Friar Minor. His request was accepted and, taking the name Anthony, he also left for\u00a0Morocco, but Divine Providence willed otherwise. As the consequence of an\u00a0illness, he was obliged to return to Italy and, in 1221, he took part in the\u00a0famous “Chapter of the mats” in Assisi, where he also met St.\u00a0Francis. Subsequently, he lived for a time totally hidden in a convent near\u00a0Forli, in the north of Italy, where\u00a0the Lord called him<\/i>\u00a0to another mission.\u00a0Invited, by totally accidental circumstances, to preach on the occasion of a priestly ordination, he showed he was gifted with such learning and eloquence that the superiors destined him to preaching. Thus he began in Italy and France such an intense and effective apostolic activity that he induced not a few persons who had separated from the Church to retrace their steps.\u00a0He was also\u00a0among the first teachers of theology of the Friars Minor, if not even the\u00a0first. He began his teaching in Bologna, with Francis’ blessing who, recognizing Anthony’s virtues, sent him a brief letter with these words:<\/p>\n “I would like you to teach theology to the friars.” Anthony set the\u00a0foundations of Franciscan theology that, cultivated by other famous figures of\u00a0thinkers, came to its zenith with St.\u00a0Bonaventure<\/b>\u00a0of Bagnoregio and Blessed\u00a0Duns Scotus<\/b>.<\/p>\n Becoming provincial superior of the Friars Minor of northern\u00a0Italy, he continued with the ministry of preaching, alternating that with\u00a0administrative tasks. When his mandate as provincial came to an end, he retired\u00a0near Padua where he had already been other times. Barely a year later, he died\u00a0at the gates of the city on June 13, 1231. Padua, which in life had received\u00a0him with affection and veneration, showed him forever honor and devotion. Pope\u00a0Gregory IX himself, after hearing him preach, described him as the “Arc of\u00a0the Testament,” and canonized him in 1232, also as a result of the\u00a0miracles that happened through his intercession.<\/p>\n In the last period of his\u00a0life, Anthony committed to writing two series of “Sermons” titled,\u00a0respectively, “Sunday Sermons” and “Sermons on the Saints,”\u00a0written for preachers and professors of theological studies of the Franciscan\u00a0Order.\u00a0In them he comments on the texts of sacred Scripture presented by\u00a0<\/i>the\u00a0liturgy<\/b>, using the Patristic Medieval interpretation of the four meanings: the\u00a0literal or historical, the allegorical or Christological, the tropological or\u00a0moral, and the anagogic, which guides to eternal life<\/i>. They are\u00a0theologic-homiletic texts, which take up the lively preaching in which Anthony\u00a0proposes a true and proper itinerary of Christian life. The wealth of the\u00a0spiritual teachings contained in the “Sermons” is such that, in 1946,\u00a0the Venerable Pope Pius XII proclaimed Anthony a doctor of the Church,\u00a0attributing to him the title of “Evangelic Doctor<\/b>,” because from\u00a0these writings arises the freshness and beauty of the Gospel; even today we can\u00a0read them with great spiritual profit. In them, he speaks of\u00a0prayer as\u00a0<\/i>a\u00a0relationship of love<\/b>, which drives man to converse sweetly with the Lord,\u00a0creating an ineffable joy, which gently envelops the soul in prayer<\/i>. \u00a0Anthony\u00a0reminds us that prayer needs an atmosphere of silence, which is not the same as\u00a0withdrawal from external noise, but is an interior experience, which seeks to\u00a0remove the distractions caused by the soul’s preoccupations. According to the\u00a0teaching of this distinguished Franciscan doctor, prayer is made up of\u00a0four\u00a0indispensable attitudes\u00a0which, in Anthony’s Latin, are described as:\u00a0obsecratio, oratio, postulatio, gratiarum actio<\/strong>. We could translate them thus:\u00a0to open one’s heart confidently to God, to speak affectionately with him, to\u00a0present to him our needs, to praise him and to thank him<\/b>.<\/p>\n In this teaching of\u00a0St. Anthony on prayer we see one of the specific features of Franciscan\u00a0theology — of which he was the initiator — namely, the\u00a0role given to divine\u00a0love, which enters in the sphere of affection, of the will, of the heart and\u00a0which is also the source from which springs a spiritual knowledge that\u00a0surpasses all knowledge.<\/p>\n Anthony writes: “Charity is the soul of faith,\u00a0makes it alive; without love, faith dies” (Sunday and Holy Days Sermons\u00a0II<\/i>, Messagero, Padua, 1979, p. 37).<\/p>\n Only a soul that prays can make progress in\u00a0the spiritual life<\/b>: this is the privileged object of St. Anthony’s preaching.\u00a0He knows well the defects of human nature, the tendency to fall into sin; that\u00a0is why\u00a0he constantly exhorts to combat the inclination to covetousness, to\u00a0pride, to impurity and to practice the virtues of poverty and generosity, of\u00a0humility and obedience, of chastity and purity. At the beginning of the 13th\u00a0century, in the context of the rebirth of the cities and the flourishing of\u00a0trade, there was an increased number of people who were insensitive to the\u00a0poor. Because of this, Anthony many times invites the faithful to think of true\u00a0wealth, that of the heart, which, making them good and merciful, makes them\u00a0accumulate treasures for Heaven. “O rich people,” he exhorts, “befriend… the poor, welcome them in your homes:\u00a0<\/span>They will then be the ones who\u00a0receive you in the eternal tabernacles, where the beauty of peace is, the\u00a0confidence of security, and the opulent quiet of eternal satiety<\/b>” (Ibid.,\u00a0p. 29).<\/span><\/p>\n Is not this perhaps, dear friends, a very important teaching also\u00a0today, when the financial crisis and the serious economic imbalances impoverish\u00a0not a few persons and create conditions of misery? In my encyclical\u00a0Caritas in Veritate<\/i>, I remind that: “The economy needs ethics\u00a0in order to function correctly — not any ethics whatsoever, but an ethics which\u00a0is people-centred” (No. 45).<\/p>\n In Francis’ school, Anthony always puts\u00a0Christ in the center of life and thought, of action and preaching. This is\u00a0another\u00a0typical feature of Franciscan theology:\u00a0Christ-centeredness<\/b>. Willingly\u00a0[this theology] contemplates and invites to contemplate the mysteries of the\u00a0Lord’s humanity, in a particular way, that of the Nativity, which arouse\u00a0feelings of love and gratitude toward divine goodness.<\/span><\/p>\n Also the vision of\u00a0the\u00a0Crucified inspires in him thoughts of gratitude to God and of esteem for the\u00a0dignity of the human person, so that all, believers and non-believers, can find\u00a0a meaning that enriches life. Anthony writes: “Christ, who is your life,\u00a0is hanging before you, because you look at the cross as in a mirror. There you\u00a0will be able to know how mortal were your wounds, which\u00a0no medicine but that of\u00a0the blood of the Son of God could have cured<\/b>. If you look well, you will\u00a0realize how great are your human dignity and your value … In no other place\u00a0can man realize better how much he is worth, but by looking at himself in the\u00a0mirror of the cross” (Sunday and Holy Days Sermons III<\/i>, p. 59).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I present the Wednesday (February 10, 2010) Address of Pope Benedict on Saint Anthony of Padua, following upon his talks on Saints Francis and Dominic in the past weeks. What is a stake here for the Pope? It is being centered totally on Jesus Christ. Nothing else matters. Prayer, a relationship of love with God … Continue reading Prayer as love in light of Saint Anthony of Padua<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[1770,2309],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25326"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25326"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31017,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25326\/revisions\/31017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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