06/13/2026
Ave Maria.
Today we celebrate St. Anthony de Padua, a priest and Doctor of the Church famous for his personal holiness, eloquent preaching, and stupendous miracles.
As impressive as St. Anthonyโs life was, it is noteworthy how humble and docile he remained to the movements of the Holy Spirit.
St. Anthony was born just before the foundation of the Franciscan Order to a powerful European family.
He certainly had a deep faith from a young age, for when he was but fifteen years old he entered a monastery.
Soon after, St. Anthony heard of the virtue of the Franciscan martyrs and decided to take on the Franciscan habit and make way for Morocco.
It wasnโt too long though before St. Anthony became seriously ill and had to set sail for Portugal.
While he was sailing, the ship went through a terrible storm and ended up on the shores of Sicily.
All of this chaos and uncertainty would have caused most people to become frustrated and uncertain, but this simple saint only wanted to serve the Lord and so he was content to quite literally go wherever divine Providence directed him.
Thus it was the Lordโs plan that St. Anthony should be at Montepaolo when some Dominicans came to visit the Franciscans.
Neither Order had a sermon prepared due to a miscommunication, and so, in the spur of the moment St. Anthony was called upon.
This homily of St. Anthony was highly impressive and it not only caught the attention of everyone present but also of St. Francis of Assisi and the rest of the world.
From this point forward, St. Anthony was called upon to preach frequently, and so he did.
During this time he brought many people to repentance and was so well known for his faithful teaching and love that he was dubbed โHammer of the Hereticsโ.
St. Anthony was also known to have had many miracles wrought through him.
For example, there is the famous case where St. Anthony practiced a sermon for heretics who he feared would be too hard-hearted to listen by preaching to fish, assuming the fish would of course ignore his words.
But rather than the fish swimming every which way, they miraculously gathered around as St. Anthony spoke.
In another incident, St. Anthony was preaching while it was raining, but the entire assembly remained dry while everything else around them became soaked.
Moreover, centuries after the saint's death, when his body was exhumed, all of it was naturally corrupted except for his tongue which was still preserved due to the holy words which it emanated.
As famous as he was and is, and as many miracles and conversions took place through him, it is important to note St. Anthonyโs humility and faith in Godโs divine Providence.
So often the Lord works in ways that we do not see coming.
So while we suffer in a society that is rampant with heresy and sin as Our Lady of Fatima warned, and as we hopefully await the victory of her Immaculate Heart, let us place our trust in God and be open to how He is calling us to serve Him.
We can do this, we can discern Godโs will for our lives through three simple means.
First, we must pray.
We must reflect on who God is and what He is doing in our lives by reflecting on the mysteries of the Rosary.
Second, we must repent, we cannot hold onto the things of this world or we will ignore Godโs call even if we hear it.
Third, we must have faith in the Lord who has given us his own mother to be our mother and intercessor.
May the Reign of Mary come!
