Yesterday I prayed to Saint Anthony to help me find something that was lost and the thing that was lost was found, perhaps because of Saint Anthony so I wanted to thank him.

Last night my father while he was walking from his office to his car lost his payheck. I had heard that when you lose things you should pray for Saint Anthony's intercession so I prayed to him. So me and my mother and my father went out looking for it. He lost it while walking outside down the street and we retraced my father's steps and went everywhere he went outside on a windy night, looking for the paycheck, a small piece of paper in the street. Of course we couldn't find it so we went home and I thought Saint Anthony had failed us. But the next morning my father went back and looked again and he found it. He somehow found a small piece of paper that had been blowing in the wind on the street all night and no one else had picked it up and he just happened to look at the exact place it happened to be the next morning. I thought that was amazing.

What a beautiful thread, Matto. We could all post the finding of lost objects through the intercession of St. Anthony here!

St. Anthony, St. Anthony, please turn around. Something is lost and cannot be found.  Help me St. Anthony!  Hail Mary....  (three times).
 
 

St Anthony never fails!

St Anthony of Padua, Doctor of the Church  
13 June

The people of Padua rarely use the title Sant’Antonio. They refer to him as Il Santo as if he is the only one. St Anthony is probably the most beloved saint in Italy – and yet he was not Italian but Portugese. Born in 1195, at 15, he joined the Canons Regular of St Augustine at Lisbon, however at 24 he met five followers of St Francis on their way to evangelise the Moroccans. Later, on hearing of their martyrdom, he decided to follow them in the Franciscan life.

Anthony was sent to the African mission, but became grievously ill and had to return to Portugal. A storm drove the ship to the Sicilian coast, and Anthony ended up at the Assisi general chapter of 1221. The provincial sent him to Forli convent where Anthony stayed 9 months doing humble duties and practicing mortification.

But the buried treasure was soon uncovered. Anthony and some brothers attended an ordination. The superior wanted someone to give an address for the occasion. Everyone excused himself. Anthony was finally asked. When he humbly excused himself, he was ordered under obedience to give the sermon. Anthony spoke with such eloquence and erudition that St Francis gave Anthony the mission to preach all over Italy.
 
The number of hearers was sometimes so great that no church was large enough to hold them. He wrought true miracles of conversion; enemies were reconciled; thieves and usurers made restitution; calumniators and detractors repented. He defended the truths of the Catholic Faith and so many heretics reconciled with the Church, that he came to be called “hammer of heretics”. Once, preaching on the Rimini coast, a group of heretics turned their backs to him. Anthony turned to the sea and called out to the fishes: "Since the heretics do not wish to listen to me, you come and listen!" Shoals of fish came thrusting their heads out of the water as if to hear Anthony, at which the heretics fell at his feet and begged to be instructed in the truth.

St Anthony spent his day teaching, hearing confessions late, then many hours of the night in intimate union with God. He is also known as “the wonderworker” so many miracles did he perform, even raising the dead. All through his life he restored things to people who had lost them: for some it was their health, for others their hope, for some their virtue and others their faith.

Due to his taxing labors and his austere penances, he soon felt his strength so spent that he prepared himself for death. After receiving the last sacraments he breathed forth his soul on June 13, 1231, just 36 years old. Miracles began to occur at his tomb. Still today, people constantly file past his tomb, to ask his intercession in a special need, or to thank him for favours received. In 1946 he was declared a Doctor of the Church.