June 13 2025 - St. Anthony of Padua - Preaching to fish and seeking the lost

 In the early 1200s a group of Franciscans left Assisi to preach the Gospel to the Muslims in Morocco. The Franciscans led by St. Berard were bold in their preaching, but their efforts were resisted. They were arrested, tortured, and beheaded.

Not long after, their relics were brought to Portugal, and there a young Augustinian friar named Anthony was deeply moved by the courage of those evangelizing Franciscan martyrs. He felt a profound calling to emulate their zeal and their way of life, and so he received permission to leave the Augustinians and join the Friars Minor. He immediately traveled to Morocco to continue that preaching mission of those martyrs, but fell ill and had to return to Italy.

And there he continued to became well known for his powerful preaching rooted in God’s word and sound Catholic theology. There is a famous story where St. Anthony traveled to Rimini in Northern Italy where there were a number of heretics. He started to preach, but they did not want to listen to him, and they even mocked him. In a dramatic gesture, Anthony went to the seashore, saying, “Because you show yourself unworthy of God’s word, behold, I turn to the fishes so that your unbelief may be shown up more clearly”. As he spoke of God’s care for those creatures that live in the waters, a shoal of fish swam near to the bank, partly thrusting themselves out of the water and appearing to listen carefully. At the end of his sermon, the Saint blessed them and they swam away. In the meantime, so deep was the impression made upon the onlookers that many hurried back to the city imploring their friends to come and see the miracle, while others burst into tears asking forgiveness. Soon after a great multitude gathered around the Saint, who exhorted them to turn back to God. So through St. Anthony’s sermon to the fishes, the city of Rimini was purged of heresy.

While he is lovingly and effectively invoked as the Patron of Lost objects, his main mission was to help find lost souls. We should invoke St. Anthony not just when we’ve lost our car keys, but to find the right words to speak to those who have left the faith and those who do not know Christ. 

May St. Anthony help us to go and seek out those who are lost, that they may find Christ. May St. Anthony’s zeal and courage fill us for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. 

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With trust in God's providence and inspired by the zeal and courage of St. Anthony of Padua, let us bring our prayers before the Lord:

For the Church throughout the world, that she may boldly proclaim the Gospel in season and out of season, drawing all people to Christ, 

For all preachers, catechists, and evangelists, that like St. Anthony, they may be rooted in God’s Word and fearless in proclaiming the truth with love and clarity, and that our parish, attentive to the needs of others, may courageously share the faith with those around us.

For those who have fallen away from the faith, that through the prayers and witness of the Church—and the intercession of St. Anthony—they may return to the sacraments and to Christ.

For the poor, the forgotten, and the spiritually lost, that we may seek them out with the love of Christ.

For the faithful departed, especially those who sought Christ in this life, that they may now rejoice in the presence of the Lord forever. 

Father of mercy, you raised up St. Anthony to preach your Word and seek the lost. Through his intercession, help us to live our faith boldly and bring others to the joy of your Kingdom. We ask this through Christ our Lord.

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024 - "The Cross is a mirror"

 

On the liturgical calendar, September 14 is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Even though the feast (is replaced by our celebration of the vigil for Sunday/was yesterday) I’d like to focus on the cross a bit, after all, we hear about the cross in our Gospel, where the Lord tells us that  whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”

A little girl at the funeral yesterday, seeing all the crosses and crucifixes here at St. Ignatius asked her father, “why are there so many Jesus’ in this church.” Our church is adorned with many crosses for a reason. Saint John Paul II called the cross THE symbol of Christianity. Most of us marked ourselves with the sign of the cross upon entering the Church today, we began mass with it, we’ll end Mass with it.  Essentially, every time we Catholics pray, we begin and end our prayer with the sign of the cross. Many of you have crosses throughout your homes, perhaps in your bedrooms—so that the cross is the first thing you see when you wake up in the morning. 

All types of people where crosses around their necks, from bishops to baseball players to musicians.   The priest holds his arms in this shape during the Eucharistic prayer.  

Worn around our necks, adorning our homes and churches, beginning and ending our prayers, the cross is not a good luck charm, it is a reminder that by the cross we are saved. As is sung on Good Friday every year, “Behold the wood of the cross, on which hung the salvation of the world.”

St. Anthony of Padua in a sermon on the cross said: “You cannot better appreciate your worth than by looking into the mirror of the Cross of Christ; there you will learn how you are to deflate your pride, how you must mortify the desires of the flesh, how you are to pray to your Father for those who persecute you, and to commend your spirit into God’s hands.”  

Let’s consider his words in depth. Firstly, St. Anthony called the cross a mirror in which you can appreciate your worth. The cross is proof—a visual reminder--that God believes that your soul and mine are worth dying for. Jesus willingly embraced the cross, taking upon himself the weight of all of our sins because we are worth something to God. God believes that saving our souls from hell is worth suffering the greatest suffering. And he wouldn’t believe that unless he loved us more than we love our own children, friends, and family—with love beyond all telling. So the cross is a mirror in which we can see our worth to God.

Secondly, St. Anthony says looking at the cross deflates our pride. How so? Well, again, it shows us that God’s ineffable love. It humbles us to fully realize how much we are loved, and how much Jesus suffered. His willingness to suffer puts our willingness to suffer—and often our unwillingness to suffer—to shame.  Many of us are willing to suffer for even those who are good to us, but Jesus suffered for all, including the most despicable, the most perverse, the most wicked, the most obstinate of sinners. So, the cross humbles our inflated pride.

Next, St. Anthony says looking at the cross show us how we must mortify the desires of the flesh. What does that mean? Contemplating Jesus’ embrace of suffering on the cross, reminds us of the need to practice self-denial as well, turning away from indulgence and the pleasures of the flesh in order to pursue the higher calling—the will of God. St. Anthony is echoing Jesus’ teaching in today’s Gospel, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”

The self-denial that Jesus is talking about here, which every Christian must pursue, involves voluntarily giving up personal desires, comforts, and preferences in order to follow God's will more closely, grow in virtue, and resist the temptations of sin

We are to detach from any worldly comforts and pleasures that distract us from their relationship with God, especially those pleasures that are expressly forbidden by the Word of God and the teaching of the Church.

This is one good reason why it’s good to have a cross in your bedroom. If the cross is the first thing you see upon waking up, it’s a reminder that I’m in this life not just to pursue my own wants and desires, but the will of God, which will likely involve turning away and saying “no” to a lot of things today, so that I can more fully say “yes” to God.

Next, St. Anthony says that the cross shows us how we are to pray to the Father for those who persecute you. The Gospels tell us that the Lord prayed for his persecutors from the cross. He prayed for everyone responsible for his crucifixion—the romans, the jews, and all of us as well. He prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”. 

We do not really comprehend how terrible are sins are—the damage that they do to our minds and souls and to one another. Every sin wounds us. Every sin wounds our relationship God. And every sin wounds our relationship with others. And most of us choose not to really think about the terrible wounds our sins inflict. But we’ll hold grudges against others for smaller slights than we commit, won’t we? We’ expect others to forgive us, we expect God to forgive us, but we’re really quick to trash talk those who we perceive as threats to us. 

Well, the cross is a reminder that we are to pray for those who threaten us, for those who commit injustices against us and our families and nation. The cross reminds us to pray as Jesus prays, to forgive as Jesus forgives. Instead of carrying around anger over the injustices we encounter, it is better for us to pray, Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Lastly, St. Anthony says, the cross shows us how to commend our spirits into God’s hands. The cross shows us to practice another thing that many of us are not very good at: trusting God. In his final breaths, jesus said, “Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit”.

To "commend" means to entrust or place something in the care of another. Jesus deeply trusted his Father, even from the cross—that his cross, his suffering, his death, would bring about the supreme good. Jesus was fully aligned with the Father's will, even when it involved death. And the crosses that we put in our homes and churches, whenever we make the sign of cross, remind us of the daily trust, the daily faith, we are to cultivate and practice. 

In the week ahead, I invite you, as a spiritual exercise, to spend 10 minutes meditating upon a crucifix, considering how it is a reminder of God’s love for you, how is calls you to deflate your pride, mortify your desires, pray to forgive others, and entrust yourselves for fully to the will of God, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. 

June 13 2023 - St. Anthony of Padua - Priest, Doctor of the Church - Man of Beatitude

 For the next three weeks, thereabout, our weekday mass Gospel readings will be taken from the Lord’s great Sermon on the Mount.  It is clear from the very beginning of the Sermon, with the Lord’s delivery of the beatitudes, that Christians are to live differently from others in the world—with a righteousness even surpassing that of the Jewish scribes and Pharisees, as the Lord teaches. In short, the Lord teaches that we must seek to be like Him, to be like his Father, to be holy.

St. Anthony desired the radical holiness preached by Jesus.  He entered the Augustinian Order as a young man as a way of turning away from the temptations of the world in order to seek the perfection of his soul.  One could say that he followed the call to religious life as a way of pursuing that purity of heart to which the Lord calls us in the beatitudes.  The pure of heart are those who love God with undivided allegiance.  They pursue God’s Holy Will single-heartedly, without mixed motives.  This is what Anthony desired.

Though he had dedicated his life to study, prayer, and learning, immersing himself in Sacred Scripture, it was a rather strange event which caused St. Anthony to become a Franciscan.  It was when he heard news that Franciscans had been put to death for preaching the Gospel in Morocco, that he felt called to join the order.  Where most of us run away from suffering, St. Anthony ran toward the opportunity to practice the final two beatitudes: blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness, and blessed are those who are persecuted for Christ’s sake.  

St. Anthony, through his practice of the beatitudes, through his desire to totally belong to Christ through the vows of his religious profession, became a radiant beacon of the light of Christ, to whom we look to imitate 800 years later.

In the face of the many problems in the world—violence, materialism, poverty, moral relativism, Jesus calls us each of us to radiate the holiness of God by putting on His mind and heart—seeking to be holy as He is holy—suffering for the Gospel, as he suffered.  Christians are called to beatitude—and the world will be impacted for better or for worse by the way Christians live our lives.  Through the example and heavenly intercession of St. Anthony of Padua, may we be faithful to this call of holiness today and all days—for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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For the holy Church of God, that the Lord may graciously watch over her and care for her.

For the peoples of all the world, that the Lord may graciously preserve harmony among them.

That the members of the Franciscan Order and all those consecrated religious may inspire us to strive for greater holiness.

For the priests of the diocese who begin a new parish assignment today, especially for the newly ordained, that they may be faithful to Christ in every dimension of their ministry. 

For all who are oppressed by any kind of need, that the Lord may graciously grant them relief, especially for the sick and victims of war and terror and natural disaster.

For the repose of the souls of our beloved dead, For the deceased members of our families, friends, and parish, for the deceased priests and religious of the diocese of Cleveland, for the poor souls in purgatory, and for those who have fought and died for our freedom.

O God, our refuge and our strength, hear the prayers of your Church, for you yourself are the source of all devotion, and grant, we pray, that what we ask in faith we may truly obtain. Through Christ our Lord.

June 13 2017 - St. Anthony of Padua - Patron of the lost

Saint Anthony of Padua has been honored since the 11th century by Catholics around the world. Anthony belonged to that first generation of the followers of St. Francis known as the Friars Minor. Unlike Saint Francis, Anthony was ordained to the priesthood.  But like Francis, he preached the Gospel, and united himself to Christ crucified. Anthony is also a doctor of the Church, and laid the foundations for the Franciscans great intellectual heritage.

In 2010, Holy Father Benedict XVI gave a beautiful summary of Saint Anthony’s life and spirituality.  He said, “Anthony, in the school of Francis, always put Christ at the center of his life and thinking, of his action and of his preaching.”

Franciscan, doctor, preacher, priest. Yet, St. Anthony is of course widely invoked as the patron saint of lost things. The little jingle goes like this: "St. Anthony, please look around; something is lost and must be found." This attribution comes from an incident from Anthony’s life.

As the story goes, Anthony had a book of psalms that was very important to him. Besides the value of any book before the invention of printing, the psalter had the notes and comments he had made to use in teaching students in his Franciscan Order.

A novice who had already grown tired of living religious life decided to depart the community. Besides going AWOL he also took Anthony’s psalter! Upon realizing his psalter was missing, Anthony prayed it would be found or returned to him. And after his prayer the thieving novice was moved to repentance. He returned the psalter to Anthony and returned to the Order, which accepted him back.

St. Anthony is invoked as patron of lost things, however more importantly is a patron of lost souls— those who have fallen to mortal sin, have abandoned the Church and have grown apathetic to the practice of the faith. And for this we should invoke him more often than we lose our car keys! When your heart is grieved over family members who have left the Church, pray to St. Anthony! For those young people who seem to be lost in a sea of sin, pray to St. Anthony! For those who are angry at the Church or preach a false Gospel, pray to St. Anthony!

In a sermon, Anthony said, “If you preach Jesus, he will melt hardened hearts; if you invoke him, he will soften harsh temptations; if you think of him, he will enlighten your mind; if you read of him, he will satisfy your intellect.”

Most importantly may Saint Anthony always help us to find Christ: in the poor, in one another, in our Sacred Worship, in our prayer, that we may know God’s help in every trial and faithfully follow the teachings of Christ, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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For the holy Church of God, that the Lord may graciously watch over her and care for her.

For the peoples of all the world, that the Lord may graciously preserve harmony among them.
That the members of the Franciscan Order and all those consecrated religious may inspire us to strive for greater holiness.

For the priests of the diocese who begin a new parish assignment today, especially for the newly ordained, that they may be faithful Christ in every dimension of their ministry.

For all who are oppressed by any kind of need, that the Lord may graciously grant them relief, especially for the sick and victims of war and terror and natural disaster.

For the repose of the souls of our beloved dead, For the deceased members of our families, friends, and parish, for the deceased priests and religious of the diocese of Cleveland, for the poor souls in purgatory, and for those who have fought and died for our freedom.

O God, our refuge and our strength, hear the prayers of your Church, for you yourself are the source of all devotion, and grant, we pray, that what we ask in faith we may truly obtain. Through Christ our Lord.