[NYer]

Thanks for that information. I never realized Mahler had composed a piece on this miracle of St. Anthony.

* * * * *

Men Won't Listen, Fishes Will!

EVEN though he was an eloquent preacher, St. Anthony wasn't always able to get an audience. Such was the case one day in Rimini. Undaunted by the refusal of the heretics of Rimini to listen to the word of God, the Saint was determined to preach to those who would listen. So he walked to the seashore and took his stand at the water's edge. As the saintly friar began to preach, the surface of the water was broken by the heads of countless fishes which rose to listen.

St. Anthony preached to the fishes of the glory of God and the goodness of their Creator. He bade them be grateful and thus confound the coldness of the people of Rimini who had no place for the word of God in their hearts. Not a fish moved as St. Anthony went on with his sermon to his quite unusual congregation. When he had finished, the Saint blessed the fish with the Sign of the Cross. Then they left.

Taken from the Miracles of Saint Anthony of Padua

[Publius]

Get Deutsche Grammophon 427302 for the song. Lucia Popp is the soprano, and Leonard Bernstein conducts the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam. It was recorded in 1986.

Of Bernstein's 3 recordings of Mahler's Second Symphony the first (1962) is the best, but it's not available any more. The second recording (1977) is perverse, and the third (1988) comes close to the first, but does not surpass it.

[Rosary]

LOVE THAT PICTURE OF ST. ANTHONY PREACHING TO THE FISH, and the true story that goes with it ,he is a wonderful, wonderful saint!!!!!

[SaltyJoe]

St Anthony helps me find my car keys when they go missing. Sometimes I ask for his help to find my sanity. In fact, I made a little prayer for school teachers in the spirit of the Philidelphia to Long Island accent that the nuns had back in my childhood:

"St Ant-nee St Ant-nee, help me find my sanni-ee."