By JOE SIXPACK
When St. Anthony of Padua was only five years old, he once heard a knock at the door late at night. It was wintertime, and the weather outside was very cold and snowy. Little Anthony ran to the window to see who was knocking at the door on such a blistery night.
He saw standing in the deep snow another little boy who was barefoot and dressed in pitifully worn and torn clothing, carrying a bag on his back. When Anthony opened the door, the little boy came into the warm house. He was shivering from the cold, and his feet were numb and almost frozen.
“Thank you,” said the little boy. “I’m glad to get warm and rest awhile because I’m very cold and tired.”
He laid his small bag on the floor and stood close to the fire to warm himself.
“What do you have in the bag?” Anthony asked.
“What do you think it is?”
“I think you have loaves of bread some good people have given you, because you look like a little beggar.”
“No!” answered the little boy.
So Anthony looked into his little guest’s bag and saw many little hearts that looked like rubies. “Who are you and what is this?” asked Anthony.
“I’m the son of a King, and I’m gathering human hearts who want to love me. Anthony, give me your heart.”
“What is your name?” Anthony asked.
“Oh, I don’t have to tell you that, because your mother has often told you about me. I am Jesus.”
Then the little boy suddenly disappeared. This was how Jesus first began to draw Anthony to Himself, the beginning of his journey to sainthood.
This is a true story from the life of St. Anthony of Padua. Many of the greatest saints in our history have extraordinary stories like this from their childhood, because God had chosen them for some extraordinary work. In St. Anthony’s case, He wanted the saint to preachagainst the great heresies of the day and to demonstrate God’s greatness through miracles. That’s why St. Anthony was called the Hammer of Heretics and the Wonder Worker.
Many of St. Anthony’s biographers claim that he was the only saint in history who performed works as great as and greater than Jesus Himself, which fits with Jesus’ prophecy that we would be able to perform works greater than He.
St. Anthony was so great a preacher that he was said to have even taken Jesus at His word to preach to the whole creation (Mark 16:15) and preached to nature when people wouldn’t listen. He once went into a village where he’d been completely rejected and the people refused to listen to the message God had for them.
So St. Anthony stopped at a lake just outside of the village and began preaching to the lake. According to witnesses, the fish in the lake all surfaced and listened to Anthony while he preached, then went back below when he was finished.
Another incident in St. Anthony’s life taught about the truth of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Most Holy Eucharist. He went into a town where no one ever attended the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. When he asked why people stayed away from Mass, the town’s priest told him it was because the wealthy man who ran the town was a heretic who denied the Real Presence, and he told the people that he would deny work and payment to anyone who attended Mass.
St. Anthony went to the man to confront him. “Why won’t you allow the people to go to Mass?” asked Anthony.
The man replied, “Jesus isn’t God, and He certainly doesn’t live in a piece of bread! This is my town, and I won’t allow such silliness.”
St. Anthony asked, “If I can prove to you that Jesus and the Most Holy Eucharist are one, will you allow the people to return to Mass?”
The man scoffed and laughed. He said, “Sure, if you can do that, I’ll allow them to go back to Mass . . . and I’ll even go myself. But you can’t prove such a thing.”
Tied behind the man’s horse was a donkey carrying some of the man’s goods. St. Anthony said, “Take your donkey and pen him up. Deny him food of any kind for the next three days. Then bring him back here to the town square, and I’ll prove to you that Jesus is in the Holy Eucharist.” The man agreed to the challenge and left.
Three days later the man returned to the town square. St. Anthony was there waiting. About one hundred feet ahead of the donkey, Anthony had placed a large basket of grain. The donkey smelled the grain and was trying to break away from his master to get to it. But standing halfway between the man with his donkey and the grain was St. Anthony, holding a monstrance with Our Eucharistic Lord exposed.
St. Anthony told the man to release his donkey. The starving beast charged forward toward the grain. But when the hungry donkey got as far as St. Anthony holding Jesus in the monstrance, the animal stopped and knelt before his Creator for a moment of adoration before moving on to the grain. All present were amazed!
Anthony went to the shocked wealthy heretic and said, “If a donkey, a dumb beast, can recognize his Master and Creator, why is it that you cannot believe?” The man wept and made a good Confession to St. Anthony right there in the street . . . and the entire town returned to Mass.
Certainly St. Anthony had an early start at becoming a saint, because Jesus had tapped him out from a very early age for great works in his adulthood. It would be great if we could all be so blessed! God has given us extraordinary people like St. Anthony who perform extraordinary miracles to remind us of His great majesty and to recall us to Himself, but He usually works within His own restrictions of nature for the rest of us.
So for us, becoming a saint is hard and tedious work. We aren’t blessed with the stigmata, like St. Francis or Padre Pio. We can’t make money or food materialize out of thin air, like St. John Bosco. We can’t bilocate — that is, be in more than one place at a time, like St. Teresa of Avila or Blessed Jacinta of Fatima. But we are no less required to become saints.
Most of the saints in history never performed any miracles at all. Most of them never even gave us prophecies or preached great sermons or were even widely known for their holiness. They were just everyday people like you and me — Joe Sixpacks who lived unnoticed by the world. The one thing they did do that most of us seem to resist is that they let go of the world and its allures and took Jesus’ statement to us to “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:38) as the command it is.
That doesn’t mean they became hermits and ran away from the world. No, they lived life just as the rest of us. They earned their livings, paid their bills, reared their children, and faced all the trials, difficulties, and joys of life that you and I face.
For the vast majority of saints in our history, becoming a saint was a lifelong process. God had given them…and us…the great examples of saints like Anthony to inspire and motivate, but they had to practice our faith and obey Christ’s commands like everyone else. That’s why we’re called practicing Catholics — it takes a lifetime of practice to get it right.
If you take the time to read the lives of the saints, you’ll see what I mean.
If you choose to practice Catholicism without reservation and strive to become a saint, it will be difficult. Jesus often asks things of us that are hard. But living a life that demonstrates to Him you want to become a saint is full of joy . . . even at those times when there is no happiness.
If you have a question or comment you can reach out to me through the “Ask Joe” page of JoeSixpackAnswers.com, or you can email me at Joe@CantankerousCatholic.com.
Hey, how would you like to see things like this article every week in your parish bulletin as an insert? You or your pastor can learn more about how to do that by emailing me at Joe@CantankerousCatholic.com.
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