Saint Anthony of Padua

Saint Anthony of Lisbon (or Padua) is known to have become the "quickest" saint in the history of the Catholic Church because he was canonized by Pope Gregory IX less than one year after his death on the 30th of May of 1232.
His fame spread as much as the Portuguese envangelization and he has been known as the most celebrated of the followers of Saint Francis of Assisi. He is the patron saint of Padua, of Italy and of many other cities in Portugal and in the countries of the former Portuguese Empire. He is especially invoked for the recovery of lost things.^[2]
Proclaimed a Doctor of the Church on January 16, 1946, he is sometimes called "Evangelical Doctor".
Each year on the weekend of the last Sunday in August, Boston's North End holds a feast in honor of St. Anthony. Referred to as the "Feast of all Feasts", St. Anthony's Feast in Boston's North End was begun in 1919 by Italian immigrants from Montefalcione, a small town near Naples, where the tradition of honoring St. Anthony goes back to 1688. The feast has become the largest Italian religious festival in the United States.
In 1746 the 1,000 bed Santo António (Saint Anthony) Hospital was completed in Porto, the Portugal Wine City. The hospital is located across the street from the building Lord Wellington set up, as his headquarters to eventually defeat Napoleon. Today Santo António Hospital is famous for successful liver transplants. The ancient "Santo António Hospital Chapel" is a mecca for patients seeking Santo António for the miracle of a cure, and for tourists seeking unique architecture. Visitors taking the Douro River wine boat tours look up from the river to see Santo António Hospital at the center of the city of Porto (Oporto), which is the size of the city of Denver. Santo António Hospital is located above the heart of the Wine Lodges. These "lodges" are Douro River vineyard producers of Port (Ruby, Tawney, Vintage & Crusty) , Red (Vinho Tinto) and White (Branco) wines. Saint Anthony is well celebrated after a good harvest.
On January 27, 1907 in Beaumont, Texas, a church was dedicated and named in honor of St. Anthony of Padua. The church was later designated a cathedral in 1966 with the formation of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Beaumont, but was not formally consecrated. On April 28, 1974, St Anthony Cathedral was dedicated and consecrated by Bishop Warren Boudreaux. In 2006 Pope Benedict XVI granted St. Anthony Cathedral the designation of minor basilica. St. Anthony Cathedral Basilica celebrated its 100th anniversary on January 28, 2007.
Seventeenth century Spanish missionaries came across a small Native American community along what was then known as the Yanaguana River on the feast day of Saint Anthony and renamed the river and eventually a mission built nearby in his honor. This mission became the focal point of a small community that eventually grew in size and scope to become the city of San Antonio, Texas.
St. Anthony is known in Brazil and Portugal as a marriage saint, because legend has him as one who conciliated couples. His feast day, June 13, is Lisbon's municipal holiday, celebrated with parades and marriages of humble couples, and he is one of the saints celebrated in the Brazilian Festa Junina (along with John the Baptist and Saint Peter). The previous day, June 12, is the Brazilian Valentine's Day.
In Uvari, in Tamil Nadu, India, the church of St. Anthony is home to an ancient wooden statue that is said to have cured the entire crew of a Portuguese ship suffering from cholera. St Anthony is said to perform many miracles daily, and Uvari is visited by pilgrims of different religions from all over South India.
Saint Anthony has many miracles and is known to be the docter saint the marriage saint and the finder of lost objects.

Unfailing Prayer to Saint Anthony

Here is a typical petition, as found on the back of a Saint Anthony holy card:

Unfailing Prayer to Saint Anthony Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints.
O Holy St. Anthony, gentlest of Saints, your love for God
and Charity for His creatures made you worthy, when on
earth, to possess miraculous powers. Miracles waited on
your word, which you were ever ready to speak for those in
trouble or anxiety. Encouraged by this thought, I implore
of you to obtain for me (request). The answer to my prayer
may require a miracle. Even so, you are the saint of
Miracles.
O gentle and loving St. Anthony, whose heart was ever full
of human sympathy, whisper my petition into the ears of the
Sweet Infant Jesus, who loved to be folded in your arms, and
the gratitude of my heart will ever be yours.
Amen. (Say 13 Paters, Aves, and Glorias)

 

Saint Anthony Prayer from Jamaica

The invocation of Saint Anthony for the return of someone or somthing lost appears in Jamaica as well as in the United States. In 1996, Lewis Erskine wrote to me:

My aunt used to say, when ever something was lost,

St. Anthony, St. Anthony
Please come down
Something is lost
And can't be found

Saint Anthony Prayer from Chicago

Professor Cunnea (AACDrCnnea@aol.com) contributed another invocation to Saint Anthony:

The one my family knows is different. My mom learned it in in Catholic grammar school on the South Side of Chicago in the 1940s:

Dear St. Anthony, I pray
Bring it back, without delay. She says it works.

Saint Anthony Prayer from Poland

Marigan O'Malley (aiabalt@pop.erols.com) wrote:

Here is my Babci's (Polish for grandmother) St. Anthony prayer:

Something's lost and can't be found
Please, St. Anthony, look around. Her mother taught it to her, She taught it to my mother and my mother to me!

GIVING THANKS TO SAINT ANTHONY

The most common thanks offerings to Saint Anthony are ex votos and Saint Anthony's Bread.
An ex voto is a small painting, stamped metal image, wxen image, or written testament to the saint's successful intervcession. The word "ex voto" means "from my vow" and the vow in question is that if the saint helps your case, you will show the world -- in the church -- that he did so. The tradition of painting and dating ex votos can be traced back to classical Mediterranean Europe and is foun today wherever Mediterranean Europeans live, including their ex-colonies in the Americas, the Pacific Island, and Africa. Reverse-painted glass ex votos, framed in wood, denerally depict the petitioner at prayer, with the saint appearing overhead, about to grant the boon requested. Here is an example of an ex voto painted in 1773 in which the father of a boy with epilepsy (who shown having a seizure) prays to Saint Anthony of Padua for help. It hands in the Saint Antonius Chapel in Haidlfing, Germany.

Saint Anthony came from Padua, Italy. Painted ex votos are the typical thanks-offerings to Saint Anthony and other saints in the traditions of Italian, Portuguese, French, German, Spanish, Sicilian, Austrian, and Greek Catholic or Orthodox Christians, or those from another European nation. Similar painted ex votos are common in most of Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, and other Spanish colonial nations outside the African Diasporic cultural area.
 
Generic ex votos depicting persons, animals, items or goods that have been found, healed, restored, or acquired due to a saint's intercession are sometimes made by casting beeswax into a mould is northern Europe. Similar generic ex votos may be made of thin stamped "tin" metal -- especially in Greece, Germany, and Peru. Alternatively, they may be cast in brass and given a wash of silver -- a style common in Gerany, Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Peru. In Latin America, small stamped and cast metal ex votos are colloquially called "milagros" which means "miracles."
 
Public thanks offerings are not always material tokens or objects, such as an ex voto. If the matter in which Saint Anthony helped were small, a monetary donation may be made to the church poor box; if larger, the donation might take the form of funding or helping to fund a purchase for the church itself, such as a statue, re-gilding of the dome, or a baptismal font. If the donor were artistically or crafts-talented, embroidered altar cloths would be suitable offerings, as would cloth garments for the statue of the saint, if his was a clothed statue in that particular church.
 
In modern Europe -- and especially in the English-speaking portions of the Americas -- it has become the custom to "magnify the fame" of the saint by publishing his name in a newspaper or, more recently, on the internet. Thus you will see many signature-lines in the Lucky Mojo Forum in which thanks are given to a variety of saints.
 
Gold-decorated wax candles as tall as a person who was lost and then found or who was healed or restored through a saint's intercession, were a common sight in European churches during my childhood. Often these special candle offerings were put on display in the chapel of the saint, and they are lit on his annual feast day.
 
If a saint was petitioned to intervene in a matter that is very serious indeed, a petitioner might promise to name a child for the saint in gratitude for a successful outcome. The child would then become the living ex voto whose very existence provided honour to the saint.
When it comes to the traditions of Saint Anthony specifically, it is important to note that most of the customs outlined above would apply to any saint, but one offering -- the giving of Saint Anthony's Bread -- is dedicated to him alone.
 
Saint Anthony's Bread is an offering of baked bread, wheat, or flour equal in weight to the person who was lost and has been found, or who was ill and has been restored to health, through the intercession of Saint Anthony. The bread or its equivalent weight in wheat or flour, or its fair-market monetary value, can be directly distributed to the poor by the one whose petition was granted, or it can be donated to a local Catholic charity or a secular food bank or community kitchen for distribution in the name of Saint Anthony.
 
Because all people, even the most wealthy and secure, may at any moment fall into need, it is the practice in some Catholic churches (especially those named for Saint Anthony) for the priest to bless small loaves of Saint Anthony's Bread on the annual feast day of Saint Anthony and to distribute them to the parishioners.
In the Afro-Caribbean diasporic traditions of Santeria, Vodoo, Palo, and other syncretic-Catholic religions, it is common to offer alcohol (generally rum) and a cigar to a variety of male saints. This is a generic offering and is not specific to Saint Anthony of Padua.