Saint Anthony of Padua

By Ollie Hodge

Life
Born (Fernando Martins de Bulhes) August 15 1195 in Lisbon, Portugal. Died - June 13 1231 (aged 36) in Padua, Italy. He was a Portuguese Catholic priest and friar of the Franciscan Order. Noted by people of that time to be a forceful preacher and to have expert knowledge of Scripture. He was declared a saint almost immediately after his death and proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in January 16, 1946.

Life
After becoming a priest, Fernando became guestmaster and put in charge of hospitality for the abbey. He met five Franciscan friars who were journeying to Morocco to preach the gospel to the Muslims there. He was attracted to the simple, evangelic lifestyle of the friars. After learning that the five friars whom he had befriended had been martyred, he meditated on the heroism of these men. He was greatly inspired and longed for the same gift of martyrdom, so he got permission from his church to leave the Augustinian Canos to join the new Franciscan Order. He then joined the small hermitage in Olivais, adopting the name Anthony.

Veneration
Anthony could be said to have become one of the "quickest" saints in the history of the Catholic Church because he was canonized by Pope Gregory IX on May 30, 1232. He is the patron saint of Padua, as well as of his native home of Lisbon, not to mention many other places in Portugal and in the countries of the former Portuguese Empire. He is especially invoked for the recovery of lost items. Proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XII on January 16, 1946, he is sometimes called the "Evangelical Doctor .