Saint Anthony of Padua

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On June 13, the Franciscan family celebrates in honor of Saint Anthony of Padua, a Franciscan saint of Portuguese origin, was a priest and doctor of the Church. In 1210 he entered the monastery of San Agustín, near Lisbon. To achieve this, he had to give up family inheritance. Being already a priest in 1219, he met the Franciscan community of Coimbra, established in the hermitage of Olivais. Antonio was attracted to his fraternal, evangelical and poverty way of life. When the remains of the first Franciscan martyrs, killed in Marrakech, arrived at his monastery, he decided to enter this new Franciscan Order, which still lacked the prestige he would reach later.

Fray Juan Parenti, provincial of Spain, presided over the simple Franciscan habit-taking ceremony (summer of 1220), in which he changed Fernando's name to Antonio's. After a brief novitiate, he embarked towards Morocco with Fray Felipe de Castilla. When disembarking, he contracted malaria, a disease that would leave him sequels for a lifetime. He stayed for some time in Milazzo, where there was a Franciscan community, to complete his recovery. In June 1221 he attended the chapter of his order in Assisi (chapter of the Mats, which summoned 3,000 Franciscans). It was then that he met San Francisco. In the middle of 1222 and due to his preaching in the cathedral of Forli on the occasion of the ordinations of Franciscans and Dominicans, his provincial appointed him preacher and commissioned him to exercise his ministry throughout northern Italy.

His catechetical work in Rimini in 1223 was difficult, but he succeeded in converting the Cathars. Then he was in Bologna, teaching theology to other friars, in the convent of Santa María de la Pugliola. Antonio was the first teacher of the order, receiving the permission of San Francisco, who wrote him a letter calling him "my bishop." By 1224, his superiors moved him to southern France. His method to combat heresy was to lead an exemplary life, chatting with unbelievers. He continued his theological teaching in Montpellier, where the Franciscans and Dominicans were formed. He was appointed guardian of the convent of Le Puy-en-Velay, and from the Arles chapter of 1225, guardian of Limoges. He managed to establish the residence of Franciscans in an old Benedictine hermitage and founded a convent near Brieve.

The death of St. Francis on October 3, 1226 forced San Antonio to travel to Assisi, to attend the general chapter to be elected by the new general minister. This Chapter took place on May 30, 1227, and Brother Juan Parenti was elected. San Antonio continued touring the places of his province where there were Franciscan convents.

In Padua, he founded a Franciscan school and began writing a series of sermons. Fruit of its work was the increase of the preaching missions and the foundation of new convents. He presented to SS. Gregory IX several questions about the Franciscan Rule for study and approval. Upon returning to Padua, he settled next to the convent of Poor Clares, preaching in the Franciscan convent of Santa María, outside the city walls. On Friday, June 13, he collapsed, and Antonio died that same afternoon. He was not yet forty years old. He was proclaimed a doctor of the Church in 1946.