June 13, 2005
It is a particular joy for us to honor Saint Anthony, the great miracle-worker of the Franciscan Order and great friend of all those in need, especially those with “senior moments” of lost items. Some of you may be familiar with the following story from his life, but it is a particularly good one to be reminded of in this year of the Eucharist.
Saint Anthony was preaching in an area swarming with Albigentians, who among other heresies, denied the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. As one man in the town was particularly vocal in his denial of Jesus’ sacramental presence, Saint Anthony challenged him to a showdown in the public square. He told the man not to feed his donkey for two days, so that it would have a voracious appetite, and then return to the central market. Two days later the man returned with his hungry donkey. Saint Anthony asked that 2 bails of delicious hay be set at one end of the town square, while he would stand with the Blessed Sacrament at the other end and pray that God would reveal the truth through this hungry creature. When the man let go of his donkey’s harness, the beast immediately went over to Saint Anthony and knelt on its front knees before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Saint Anthony then gave a convicting sermon on the Real Presence, stating that if God can reveal this truth to a hungry dumb donkey then his baptized children should at least have greater faith in it.
By the way, I’ll anticipate one of the more frequent questions we are asked about Saint Anthony; how he was put in charge of the heavenly “Lost and Found Department.” There are a few stories about missing notes for a homily, but no one moment is the definitive connection. Rather, however Christians first stumbled upon this heavenly gift, the bottom line is simply that the Lord must love to answer these requests through his faithful servant.
A final note: I wouldn’t recommend that you tell a church full of Italian ladies that Saint Anthony was actually Portuguese. I barely escaped with my life…
Fr. Richard Roemer, CFR
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Note: Last Sunday, June 5th, we asked that you e-mail us some questions which we will answer in our "from the friars" daily reflections. We have received several questions. Thank you, and keep them coming! We will begin to respond to these questions next week.
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