Day 2: The Hammer of Heretics

The second day of the Saint Anthony Novena turns to the Catholic title that the saint earned in his lifetime through his powerful preaching: Hammer of Heretics (Latin: Malleus Haereticorum). The thirteenth century in which Anthony preached was marked by the spread of the Albigensian (Cathar) heresy and other dualist movements in southern France and northern Italy, and Anthony's preaching was the principal Franciscan response to these heresies.

Today's invocation

O glorious Saint Anthony of Padua... (the full opening prayer)

Today's meditation

The Albigensian heresy, treated more fully in the Saint Dominic de Guzman entry, was a dualist religious movement that rejected the goodness of the material creation, the Incarnation of Christ, the Eucharist, and the moral authority of the Catholic Church. By the early thirteenth century the heresy had spread widely in the Languedoc region of southern France and was making inroads into northern Italy. The Catholic Church had responded with both military and pastoral measures: the Albigensian Crusade (a series of military campaigns from 1209) and the new mendicant orders of the Dominicans and Franciscans (whose preaching was the principal pastoral response).

Anthony's preaching against the Albigensians and other heretical movements was particularly effective because it was grounded in his deep knowledge of the Sacred Scriptures and his profound personal sanctity. The standard hagiographical sources record that Anthony preached not principally against the heretics in polemical terms but for the Catholic faith in positive terms: he expounded the goodness of the material creation as the Lord's good work, the reality of the Incarnation as the Lord's loving union with the human family, the truth of the Eucharist as the Lord's continuing presence among His people, and the authority of the Catholic Church as the visible body of Christ.

Several famous miracles are associated with Anthony's preaching against the heretics. The most well-known is the Miracle of the Mule: a heretic challenged Anthony to prove the truth of the Real Presence in the Eucharist by means of a public test. The heretic's mule, deprived of food for three days, was placed in the public square along with a pile of fresh hay and a Catholic priest holding the consecrated Host. The mule, hungry as it was, ignored the hay and knelt before the Host. The crowd was astonished; the heretic was reported to have converted on the spot.¹

Today's intention

Today, in addition to your principal intention, pray for the renewal of Catholic preaching in our own time. Saint Anthony, Hammer of Heretics, intercede for the bishops, priests, and Catholic teachers of our own age. Where the truth of the Catholic faith is being eroded by error, restore it through their preaching. Where Catholic souls are confused by the contradictions of the modern world, give them the clarity of the Gospel that you preached.

If you are praying this novena for the conversion of a particular family member or friend who has fallen away from the Catholic faith into a different religious tradition or into secular agnosticism, today is an appropriate day to bring that intention specifically.

Reflection

The Catholic spiritual tradition has long observed that Saint Anthony's example of preaching is the proper Catholic model. The polemical mode (attack the heretic) is not the principal Catholic method; the positive mode (proclaim the Catholic truth) is. Anthony attacked errors only insofar as he had to defend the truth. His preaching was principally an exposition of the Catholic faith in its beauty and depth, and the conversions that followed were the natural fruit of the truth itself rather than the result of polemical argument.

The Catholic faithful in our own time, faced with the spread of various secular and pseudo-religious errors, are called to the same Catholic mode of witness. The principal Catholic apostolate is not the refutation of error but the proclamation of the Catholic truth in its fullness. The novena's second day is the appropriate Catholic moment to renew our commitment to this positive Catholic witness.

Closing prayers

Conclude with the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be.

Saint Anthony of Padua, Hammer of Heretics, pray for the renewal of Catholic preaching in our own time.

Footnotes

1. The Miracle of the Mule is documented in the early Franciscan biographical sources, including the Vita Prima of Saint Anthony composed shortly after his canonization in 1232. The standard modern English biography is Christopher Stace, Saint Anthony of Padua: His Life, Legends, and Devotions (2013). ↩