Dom Prosper Guéranger:
“Rejoice, happy Padua, rich in your priceless treasure!” Anthony in bequeathing you his body has done more for your glory than the heroes who founded you on so favoured a site, or the doctors who have illustrated your famous university!
The days of Charlemagne were past and gone. Yet the work of Pope Leo III still lived on despite a thousand difficulties. The enemy, now at large, had sown cockle in the field of the divine Householder. Heresy was cropping up here and there, while vice was growing apace in every direction. In many a heroic combat, the Popes aided by the Monastic Order, had succeeded in casting disorder from out the Sanctuary itself. Still the people, too long scandalised by venal pastors, were fast skipping away from the Church. Who could rally them once more? who wrest from Satan a reconquest of the world? At this trying moment, the Spirit of Pentecost, ever living, ever present in Holy Church, raised up the Sons of Saint Dominic and of Saint Francis. The brave soldiers of this new militia, organised to meet fresh necessities, threw themselves into the field, pursuing heresy into its most secret lurking holes, and thundering against vice in every shape and wherever found. In town or in country, they were everywhere to be seen confounding false teachers by the strong argument of miracle as well as of doctrine, mixing with the people whom the sight of their heroic detachment easily won over to repentance. Crowds flocked to be enrolled in the Third Orders instituted by these two holy founders to afford a secure refuge for the Christian life in the midst of the world.
The best known and most popular of all the sons of Saint Francis is Anthony whom we are celebrating this day. His life was short: at the age of 35 he winged his flight to Heaven. But a span so limited allowed nevertheless of a considerable portion of time being directed by our Lord, to preparing this chosen servant to the ministry destined for him. The all important thing in God’s esteem, where there is question of fitting apostolic men to become instruments of salvation to a greater number of souls, is not the length of time which they may devote to exterior works, but rather, the degree of personal sanctification attained by them, and the thoroughness of their self abandonment to the ways of divine Providence. As to Anthony, it may almost be said, that up to the last day of his life. Eternal Wisdom seemed to take pleasure in disconcerting all his thoughts and plans. Out of his 20 years of religious life, he passed 10 among the Canons Regular, to whom the divine call had invited him at the age of 15, in the full bloom of his innocence. And there, wholly captivated by the splendour of the Liturgy, occupied in the sweet study of the holy Scriptures and of the Fathers, blissfully lost in the silence of the cloister — his seraphic soul was ever being wafted to sublime heights, where (so it seemed) he was always to remain, held and hidden in the secret of God’s face. When on a sudden, behold the Divine Spirit urges him to seek the martyr’s crown: and presently, he is seen emerging from his beloved monastery, and following the Friars Minor to distant shores, where already some of their number had snatched the blood-stained palm. Not this, however, but the martyrdom of love, was to be his. Falling sick and reduced to impotence, before his zeal could effect anything on the African soil, obedience recalled him to Spain. But instead of that he was cast by a tempest on the Italian coast.
It happened that Saint Francis was just then convoking his entire family, for the third time, in General Chapter. Anthony unknown, lost in the vast assembly, beheld at its close, each of the Friars in turn, receive his appointed destination, whereas to him not a thought was given. What a sight! The scion of the illustrious family de Bouillon and of the kings of the Asturias, completely overlooked in the throng of holy Poverty’s sons! At the moment of departure, the Father Minister of the Bologna Province, remarking the isolated condition of the young religious whom no one had received in charge, admitted him, out of charity, into his company. Accordingly having reached the Hermitage of Monte Paolo, Anthony was deputed to help in the kitchen and in sweeping the house, being supposed quite unfitted for anything else. Meanwhile, the Augustinian Canons, on the contrary, were bitterly lamenting the loss of one whose remarkable learning and sanctity, far more even than his nobility, had up to this, been the glory of their Order. The hour at last came, chosen by Providence, to manifest Anthony to the world. And immediately, as was said of Christ Himself, the whole world went after him. Around the pulpits where this humble Friar preached, there were wrought endless prodigies in the order of nature and of grace. At Rome he earned the surname of “Ark of the Covenant,” in France, that of “Hammer of heretics.” It would be impossible for us here to follow him throughout his luminous course. But suffice it to say that France, as well as Italy, owes much to his zealous ministry.
Saint Francis had yearned to be himself the bearer of the Gospel of peace, through all the fair realm of France, then sorely ravaged by heresy. But in his stead he sent there Anthony, his well-beloved son and, as it were, his living portrait. What Saint Dominic had been in the first crusade against the Albigenses, Anthony was in the second. At Toulouse was wrought that wondrous miracle of the famished mule turning aside from the proffered grain in order to prostrate in homage before the Sacred Host. From the Province of Berry, his burning word was heard thundering in various distant provinces, while Heaven lavished delicious favours on his soul that remained ever childlike amid the marvellous victories achieved by him, and the intoxicating applause of an admiring crowd. Under the very eyes of his host, at a lonely house in Limousin, the Infant Jesus came to him radiant in beauty. And throwing Himself into his arms, He covered him with sweetest caresses, pressing the humble Friar to lavish the like on Him. One feast of the Assumption Anthony was sad because of a phrase then to be found in the Office, seeming to throw a shade of discredit on the fact of Mary’s body being assumed into heaven together with her soul. Presently, the divine Mother herself came to console her devoted servant in his lowly cell, assuring him of the truth of the doctrine of her glorious Assumption and so left him, ravished with the sweet charms of her countenance and the melodious sound of her voice. Suddenly, as he was preaching at Montpellier, in a church of that city thronged with people, Anthony remembered that he had been appointed to chant the Alleluia at the conventual Mass in his own convent, and he had quite forgotten to get his place supplied. Deeply pained at this involuntary omission, he bent his head on his breast: while standing thus motionless and silent in the pulpit as though asleep, his brethren saw him enter their choir, sing his verse and depart. At once, his auditory beheld him recover his animation and continue his sermon with the same eloquence as before. In this same town of Montpellier, another well known incident occurred. When engaged in teaching a course of theology to his brethren, his commentary on the Psalms disappeared but the thief was presently constrained, even by the fiend himself, to bring back the volume, the loss of which had caused our Saint so much regret. Such is commonly thought to be the origin of the popular devotion by which a special power of recovering lost things is ascribed to Saint Anthony. However this may be, it is certain that from the very outset this devotion rests on the testimony of startling miracles of this kind. And in our own day constantly repeated favours of a similar nature still confirm the same.
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O glorious Anthony, the simplicity of your innocent soul made you a docile instrument in the hand of the Spirit of Love. The Seraphic Doctor, Saint Bonaventure, hymning your praises, takes for his first theme your childlike spirit, and for his second your wisdom which flowed from it. Wise indeed were you, Anthony, for from your tenderest years you were in earnest pursuit of divine Wisdom and, wishing to have Her alone for your portion, you hastened to shelter your love in some cloister to hide you in the secret of God’s face, the better to enjoy Her chaste delights. Silence and obscurity in Her sweet company was your heart’s one ambition, and even here below. Her hands were pleased to adorn you with incomparable splendour. She walked before you, and blithely did you follow, for Her own sake alone without suspecting how all other good things were to become yours in Her company (Wisdom vii.). Happy a childlike spirit, such as yours, to which are ever reserved the more lavish favours of Eternal Wisdom!
“But,” exclaims your sainted panegyrist, “who is really a child, nowadays? Humble Littleness is no more, therefore Love is no more. Nothing is to be seen now but valleys bulging into hills, and hills swelling into mountains. What says Holy Writ? “When they were lifted up, you have cast them down” (Psalms lxxii. 18). To such towering vaunters, God said again: “Behold, I have made you a small child” (Abdias ii.), but exceedingly contemptible among the nations is such an infancy. Wherefore will you keep to this childishness, men, making your days an endless series of inconstancy, boisterous ambition and vain effort at garnering wretched chaff? Other is that infancy which is declared to be the greatest, in the land of true greatness (Matthew xviii. 4). Such was yours, Anthony! And thereby were you wholly yielded up to Wisdom’s sacred influence.”
In return for your loving submission to God, our Father in heaven, the populace obeyed you, and fiercest tyrants trembled at your voice (Wisdom viii. 14, 15). Heresy alone dared once to disobey you — dared to refuse to hearken to your word. Thereupon the very fishes of the sea took up your defence, for they came swimming in shoals before the eyes of the whole city to listen to your preaching which heretics had scorned. Alas, error, having long ago recovered from the vigorous blows dealt by you, is yet more emboldened in these our days, claiming even sole right to speak. The offspring of Manes, whom under the name of Albigenses, you so successfully combated, would now under the new appellation of Freemasonry, have all France at its beck. Your native Portugal beholds the same monster stalking in broad daylight, almost up to the very altar. and the whole world is being intoxicated by its poison. You, who daily flies to the aid of your devoted clients in their private necessities: you, whose power is the same in Heaven as heretofore on Earth, succour the Church, aid God’s people, have pity on society, now more universally and deeply menaced than ever. You, Ark of the Covenant, bring back our generation so terribly devoid of love and faith, to the serious study of sacred Letters in which is so energising a power. You Hammer of Heretics strike once more such blows as will make Hell tremble and the heavenly Powers thrill with joy.Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYOLOGY:
At Rome, on the Via Ardeatina, the birthday of St. Felicula, virgin and martyr, who was delivered to the judge for refusing to marry Flaccus and to sacrifice to idols. As she persevered in the confession of Christ, he confined her in a dark dungeon without food and afterwards caused her to be racked until she expired. She was then cast into a sewer, but St. Nicomedes buried her on the road just mentioned.
In Africa, the holy martyrs Fortunatus and Lucian.
At Byblos in Palestine, St. Aquilina, virgin and martyr, at the age of twelve years, under the emperor Diocletian and the judge Volusian. For the confession of the faith she was buffeted, scourged, pierced with red-hot bodkins, and being struck with the sword, consecrated her virginity by martyrdom.
In Abruzzo, St. Peregrinus, bishop and martyr. For the Catholic faith he was thrown into the river Pescara by the Lombards.
At Cordova, in the persecution of the Arabs, St. Fandila, a priest and monk, who underwent martyrdom by decapitation for the faith of Christ.
In Cyprus, St. Triphyllius, bishop.
And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.
Thanks be to God.
