Saint Anthony of Padua

Fernando Martins de Bulhões was born in Lisbon around 1195 into a noble family. He entered the Augustinian canons regular and, moved by the death of the first Franciscan martyrs in Morocco, asked to follow the way of St. Francis of Assisi.

He took the name Anthony and sailed for Africa, but illness forced his return. His ship was driven to Sicily; from there he went to Assisi and lived in humility until an improvised sermon revealed his extraordinary gift of preaching.

He preached in Italy and southern France with zeal and clarity, converting heretics and drawing crowds back to the sacrament of reconciliation. Francis of Assisi sent him to teach theology to the friars, warning that study must not erase evangelical simplicity.

Anthony served as provincial minister in Romagna and fought spiritual poverty with the same firmness with which he denounced indifference toward the poor. His accessible language made faith understandable to ordinary people.

He died on June 13, 1231, at only thirty-six, in Arcella near Padua, the city that welcomed him and where his incorrupt body rests in the shrine dedicated to him.

Canonized less than a year later, he was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1946 with the title Doctor evangelicus. He is invoked as patron of lost objects, travelers, and urgent needs. His feast is June 13.