Free Republic

The statue of St. Anthony of Padua in my "icon corner," with the icon of St. Charbel Makhlouf in the left background. (The following is excerpted from Dom Prosper Guéranger's entry in The Liturgical Year for 13 June, in Volume XII of the 1983 Marian House edition of the English translation by the Benedictines of Stanbrook.) "...The days of Charlemagne were past and gone; yet the work of Leo III still lived on, despite a thousand difficulties. The enemy, now at large, had sown cockle in the field of the divine householder; heresy was springing up and there, whilst vice...

The great Anthony of Padua has a universal appeal in the Catholic Church (he is truly a "catholic" saint). His statue can be found in churches the world over. He is most famous as the patron of lost articles. God knows how many times I've invoked his intercession in that area. But he has earned another title for his gift of converting the "sheep who had wandered" with his preaching - malleus haereticorum - or "the hammer of heretics." While he is known for being a saint of the Italian city of Padua, St. Anthony was actually from Portugal, and...