St. Anthony of Padua

Who they were

Anthony was born in Lisbon to a wealthy family and joined the Augustinian canons as a young man, where he was educated and expected to stay. What changed his life was the sight of the bodies of five Franciscan friars, killed in Morocco, being carried through the city. He left the Augustinians, joined the young Franciscan order, and set out for Morocco himself intending to be martyred.

He got sick almost immediately and was sent home. The ship was blown off course to Sicily. He ended up in Italy, at a backwater hermitage, doing kitchen work, and nobody knew what he was.

That lasted until an ordination where the scheduled preacher failed to appear and Anthony was told, more or less as a last resort, to say something. What came out revealed a man of formidable learning and unusual power as a speaker. He spent the last decade of his life preaching across Italy and southern France, often to crowds too large for any church, and became one of the most effective preachers of the age. He died at thirty-five and was canonized less than a year later, one of the fastest canonizations in the Church's history.

He is usually depicted holding the child Jesus and a lily, from a later account of a vision. Both the image and the reputation for miracles took hold quickly and never let go.

Why people turn to St. Anthony of Padua

The patronage of lost things comes from a specific story. A novice left the friary and took with him a psalter Anthony used for teaching, a valuable book in an age before printing and full of his own notes. Anthony prayed for its return. The novice, according to the account, was moved to bring it back and to return to the order as well. What people remember is the recovered book. What the story is actually about is the recovered person, which is why the patronage has always stretched from misplaced keys to estranged family.

How to ask their intercession

Ask him plainly to pray that what is lost is found. The rhyme people learn as children is a folk custom, not a formula, and nothing depends on saying it correctly. Where the loss is a person rather than an object, say that, and expect the asking to be a long practice rather than a single request.

A prayer to St. Anthony of Padua

If then you ask for miracles, death, error, all calamities, leprosy and demons fly, and health succeeds infirmities. The sea obeys and fetters break, and lifeless limbs you do restore, while treasures lost are found again, when young and old your aid implore. All dangers vanish at your prayer, and direst need does quickly flee; let those who know your power proclaim, let Paduans say: these are of thee. To Father, Son, may glory be, and Holy Spirit, eternally.

The Responsory of St. Anthony ("Si quaeris miracula"), attributed to Julian of Speyer, thirteenth century. Traditional English translation, public domain.