Bread of St Anthony of Padua

This Holy Week I was lucky enough to travel to Rome and participate in the different events organized by the Vatican, from the Via Crucis in the Colosseum to the Mass of Easter Sunday, all presided over by a great smile of Pope Francis that I will never forget. Sightseeing I went to several Roman churches, I discovered that the name of the brushes of the churches with an image of San Antonio de Padua (almost all the churches had an image of our Saint) coincided with the name of our magazine “The bread of the poor. ” Where does the title of our magazine come from? I wondered. Well, the legends and miracles of San Antonio, El Pan and the Poor that I discovered, I detail them below.

The best known legend is that of "The weight of the child", and is what Father Julio told me when he came accompanying the relics of the Saint to Spain. According to her, in the thirteenth century, in Padua, a few years after San Antonio died, a child fell into a well. When his mother could rescue him, the boy was already dead. She desperately begged San Antonio de Padua to return her son's life, promising him as much weight in wheat as the child weighed for the poor. The miracle was worked, the boy recovered his life and his mother immediately fulfilled the promise made to San Antonio de Padua, distributing to the poor as much bread as was the weight of his son. Since then, the miracle began to spread throughout Italy with the name of "The weight of the child."

Another legend about Bread tells us that when San Antonio was in his Convent and at the request of alms from a large group of poor people, he distributed all the bread that was in the convent without asking the baker for permission. When it was time to distribute the bread to the friars, the baker noticed and told San Antonio. He told him to come back and check if it was true that there was no bread. The baker friar did so, and was amazed to see that the baskets were full of bread. Again the miracle was done. In the church of the Franciscan convent of Aracoeli in Rome we find a painting by Pinturicchio (1454-1513) - a pseudonym of Bernardino di Betto di Biagio - depicting Saint Anthony with a book in his right hand and a bread on top. It is very possible that the inspiration came from this Antonian legend.

Finally, in 1888, in Toulon, a city in France located in the department of Var, lived a young woman named Luisa Bouffier, a pious and devoted woman from San Antonio de Padua. Luisa, ran a small business. One day he could not open the door because he had lost his key. He called the locksmith, and for many efforts he could not get what he wanted. Then Luisa went to San Antonio, offering alms to the poor if she managed to open the door; and as soon as he had finished making such a promise, the door opened effortlessly. In the back room he placed an image of San Antonio de Padua and there he began to worship him: Likewise, he placed a brush for the devotees of San Antonio to give their alms, and with it attend to the poor of the town. 

The miracle ran from mouth to mouth and the people of the place and the neighboring towns began to go to that back room to pray before the image and make their requests. That religious practice was extended to other cities and other countries, and today many churches around the world have brushes with the image of San Antonio and the legend El Pan de Los Pobres. agro ran from mouth to mouth and the people of the place and the neighboring towns began to go to that back room to pray before the image and make their requests. That religious practice was extended to other cities and other countries, and today many churches around the world have brushes with the image of San Antonio and the legend El Pan de Los Pobres.