St Anthony of Padua

Antony begins life in Lisbon as Ferdinand, son of a noble Portuguese family, educated first by the clergy of the cathedral and then by the Augustinian canons. Prayer, study, and an astonishing command of Scripture were already shaping the later saint. The turning point comes in Coimbra when the relics of Franciscan martyrs brought back from Morocco awaken in him a desire to give his own life for Christ. He leaves the Augustinians, receives the Franciscan habit, and takes the name Antony. His first plan fails almost at once. He reaches Morocco hoping to preach to the Moors, but illness breaks him down and forces him to turn back. Even the return takes an unexpected course. Storms drive his ship to Sicily, and from there he reaches the great chapter at Assisi in 1221, where he sees St Francis and the immense young Franciscan movement gathered together. Afterward he is sent to a poor hermitage near Forli, where no one suspects his learning and he quietly serves by prayer and humble household work.

The hidden life breaks open at an ordination when no one else is ready to preach and Antony is told to speak. The brother who had been washing dishes suddenly astonishes everyone with learning, fervor, and eloquence. From there the story widens quickly. He preaches across northern Italy and southern France, argues from Scripture against heresy, teaches theology to the friars with Francis’s blessing, and eventually gives himself almost entirely to the pulpit. Padua becomes the place most associated with him because there his sermons do not merely draw crowds but produce visible reform. Quarrels are settled, prisoners are freed, stolen or unjustly held goods are restored, and the poor find in him a defender strong enough to attack the evil of usury and even confront rulers like Eccelino. Worn out by labor, Antony withdraws to Camposampiero, asks to be taken back to Padua when death approaches, and dies on the city’s outskirts in 1231 at only thirty-six. The life is short, but its force is immense: hidden friar, teacher, preacher, reformer, and wonder-worker.