An Unforgettable Feast

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - June 13, 2008

The Church celebrates today one of the most popular saints of all time. Portuguese and Italians love him so much that both claim him as their own. The former call him St. Anthony of Lisbon, which is where he was born in 1195 and grew up; the Italians insist on referring to him as St. Anthony of Padua, after the northern Italian city where he spent his last few years and died in 1231. Devotion to him traverses centuries and it seems every Catholic ethnic group.

He became famous during the last decade of his life as a Scripture scholar, teacher and preacher. Pope Gregory IX nicknamed him the "Ark of the Covenant" because he seemed to bear within all the wisdom contained within the word of God. He lectured on Sacred Scripture at the University of Padua and inspired the Christians of his generation to pick up the Bible and read it. His missions were mobbed, as whole cities would turn out, sometimes for weeks, to hear him.

But the real reason why devotion to him remains enormous is not because he was the greatest Scripture scholar of his day; few today have ever read his allegorical interpretation of Holy Writ. It is not because the academic guild has piously promoted his cult. Nor is it because his mission sermons are a devotional classic. The reason behind his enormous cult has little to do, in fact, with anything he did during his earthly lifetime. Rather, it has almost everything to do with what he has done after the Lord came for him 777 years ago today.

St. Thérèse Lisieux once said that her real work would begin after she died. "I will spend my heaven," she told her fellow Carmelite sisters as she lay on her deathbed, "doing good upon earth. I will let fall a shower of roses." St. Anthony has likewise spent his eternity doing good for the rest of us still on pilgrimage, down-pouring on us not flowers, but our lost keys, glasses and so much more!

St. Anthony is one of the greatest examples in the Church's history showing us that human death is not the end of life, but the real beginning, and that those in heaven can love even more concretely and effectively than they were able to do on earth.

This truth was brought home to me in an indelible way five years ago today. I was finishing up a weeklong program at St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore for young priests. For the previous three weeks, I had been trying to get in touch with friends of mine in northern Virginia, Erik and Joan, to arrange a visit, but I hadn't heard back from them. Joan had been battling bone cancer and I wanted to come by to see her and pray with her. Not hearing back from them, I was planning to drive back north to Massachusetts, but as soon as I was driving out of the seminary parking lot, I had a strong sense that I should drive south to Virginia and knock on the door without an invitation. That's what I ended up doing.

Earlier that morning, celebrating the memorial of St. Anthony at the Seminary, I prayed through his intercession for Joan. During the hour-long drive to Virginia, I naturally turned again to him in prayer, asking him to intercede for Joan and to ensure that my unannounced visit would not be a burden. When I rang their doorbell, Erik answered. Upon seeing me, his jaw dropped and his fatigued face turned white.

Before I could apologize for the unbidden visit, he interrupted, "How did you know to come right now?" I asked him what he meant. He explained that Joan probably only had a few hours to live, that their whole extended family was in the house praying for her and that Fr. Robert — a mutual priest friend who had originally introduced us — had just anointed her and was preparing to celebrate Mass in order to give her the Precious Blood as viaticum. Erik went on to say that Fr. Robert had just told him that he would be too emotional to preach a homily during the Mass and added, "I wish Roger were here to do it." That's when, he told me, the doorbell rang and why he said he was so stunned to see me on the other side. We were all convinced that God had brought us all there at that moment.

I ran to my car to get my priestly vestments. Before Mass began, a couple of the members of Joan's family asked to go to confession. Soon Fr. Robert and I had confessed almost every person present over the age of reason. Between confessions I was asking the Lord to help me to know what to say during the homily, since the circumstances of my arrival, which quickly passed among the family members, had created totally unrealistic expectations. I could recite the details of the biography of St. Anthony almost by rote, but how could I relate them to Joan and the many members of her family — including her and Erik's four young kids — who were tearfully watching this courageous wife and mother die?

That's when the Holy Spirit came to rescue me. He helped me to recall that Joan was 36, the same age St. Anthony was when the Lord came for him. I preached on how sad the people in northeastern Italy were back in 1231 when they seemed to "lose" someone they loved so much, but that that's when St. Anthony was merely getting started. It's because of all he did after he was taken by the Lord at that tender age that we continue to celebrate his feast day today. For those who live and die in the Lord, as Anthony did, as Joan was doing, heavenly life is one in which one's love, united to God's, can do even more good than here on earth. The one thing necessary to do on earth, which Joan did throughout life but in a special way during her suffering and agony, was to put into practice Jesus' command in the Sermon on the Mount that St. Anthony made the recurring theme of his preaching: "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and everything else will be given you besides" (Mt 6:33). Joan preferentially sought that kingdom and, I'm confident, entered into it a few hours after Mass was done. I continue to rely on her help from above, especially with young mothers and all those who are battling cancer.

The greatest thing St. Anthony helps us to find is God's kingdom. He also helps us to find firm hope that even after death love never ends (1 Cor 13:8).

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.