Day 3: Patron of Lost Things

The third day of the Saint Anthony Novena turns to the patronage by which the Catholic world principally invokes him: he is the patron of lost things. The Catholic faithful in every country, in every century since the saint's death, have turned to him for the recovery of lost objects (keys, books, documents, jewelry) and, in the deeper Catholic understanding, for the recovery of lost souls and lost causes.

Today's invocation

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

Today's meditation

The historical origin of Saint Anthony's patronage of lost things is preserved in a particular incident from his life. According to the standard hagiographical sources, a young Franciscan novice in Anthony's friary stole one of Anthony's books (a Psalter, valuable in the manuscript era because each book had to be copied by hand) and ran away from the friary. Anthony prayed earnestly for the recovery of the book. The novice was overtaken on the road by an inner conviction so strong that he turned around, returned to the friary, and gave the book back to Anthony with an apology. The Psalter recovered, the novice's vocation restored.

The Catholic devotion to Saint Anthony as patron of lost things flowed from this incident. The Catholic faithful have invoked him for lost objects of every kind for eight centuries. The traditional brief invocation, prayed by Catholics in the moment of losing something:

Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony, please come around. Something is lost and must be found.

The brief rhyme is not a magical spell; it is a Catholic petition, prayed in confidence in the saint's intercession. The Catholic tradition has long observed that the lost item, in the great majority of cases, is recovered shortly after the prayer (in many cases by the soul's own renewed attentiveness, in other cases by a kind of providence that the Catholic theology recognizes as Saint Anthony's intercession at work).

The deeper Catholic patronage extends from material lost things to spiritual lost things. Saint Anthony is invoked for the recovery of lost souls (those who have wandered from the Catholic faith), lost causes (those situations in which all human effort seems exhausted), and lost loves (the disordered loves that the Catholic soul needs to surrender, as well as the proper loves that the soul has neglected). The Catholic faithful who have prayed Saint Anthony novenas for many years often testify that the saint's patronage in these spiritual losses is even more remarkable than in material ones.¹

Today's intention

Today, in addition to your principal intention, name to Saint Anthony the specific lost things in your life. Be specific. The lost things may be:

• Material: keys, jewelry, documents, books, devices.
• Relational: a friend with whom you have lost contact, a family member estranged from you, a love that has cooled.
• Spiritual: a virtue you used to practice but have neglected, a Catholic discipline you have abandoned, a sense of the Lord's presence you have lost.

For each, ask Saint Anthony to intercede with the Lord that the lost thing be restored.

Reflection

The Catholic devotion to Saint Anthony as patron of lost things has a particular pastoral fruitfulness. Many Catholic souls who have grown lukewarm in the practice of the faith have been brought back through the small miracle of an answered Saint Anthony prayer for a lost object. The sequence is recurring in the testimonies: a Catholic loses something, prays half-seriously to Saint Anthony, recovers the item, is moved by the gentle Catholic confirmation of the saint's intercession, begins to pray more seriously, gradually returns to the practice of the faith. Saint Anthony's small daily miracles in the Catholic life are, in this sense, often the door through which the larger Catholic conversion enters.

Closing prayers

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

Saint Anthony of Padua, patron of lost things, restore to me what I have lost. Pray for us.

Footnotes

1. The story of the recovered Psalter is preserved in the early Franciscan biographical sources. The Catholic devotion to Saint Anthony as patron of lost things is documented in the standard Catholic devotional manuals across the centuries. ↩