JPII VIII centenary of birth of Saint Anthony

 

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Addresss of Saint John Paul II on the VIII centenary of the birth of Saint Anthony

Saint Anthony, an evangelical man of great missionary ardor

To the Most Reverend Father Lanfranco Serrini, OFMConv, president of the Union of Franciscan General Ministers.

1. I understand, with great pleasure, that the four Franciscan families are preparing to celebrate with appropriate initiatives the 8th centenary of the birth of Saint Anthony, a charismatic figure, universally venerated and invoked.

The entire Franciscan Order is committed to preparing the jubilee of this exemplary model, together with the city of Padua, which hosts the center of Antonian devotion in its territory, and with that of Lisbon, where the saint was born.

This commemoration of the eighth centenary will be ecclesiastically fruitful, if it elicits a choral invocation to Saint Anthony so that, with his example and intercession, he may encourage the Christians of our time to commit themselves to achieving the highest and noblest goals of the faith and of Holiness.

For this common hope to become a reality, it is necessary that everyone, pastors and faithful, rediscover the person of Saint Anthony with sincere devotion, study his spiritual path, understand his virtues and listen meekly to the message that springs from his life.

2. Only thirty-six years did his earthly existence last. The first fourteen were spent in the episcopal school of his city. At the age of 15 he asked to enter the Canons Regular of San Agustín; At the age of 25, he received priestly ordination: ten years of life characterized by diligent and active search for God, by intense study of theology, and by maturation and interior perfection.

But God continued to question the spirit of the young priest Fernando, the name he had received at the baptismal font. In the monastery of Santa Cruz, in Coimbra, he met a group of Franciscans from the first hour, who, from Assisi, went to Morocco to witness the Gospel there, even at the cost of martyrdom. In that circumstance the young Fernando experienced a new desire: to announce the Gospel to the pagan peoples, without stopping at the risk of losing his life.

In the autumn of 1220 he left his monastery and began to follow the Poverello de Asís, taking the name of Antonio. So he left for Morocco, but a serious illness forced him to renounce his missionary ideal.

Thus began the last period of his existence, during which God guided him on paths he had never thought to travel. After uprooting him from his land and from his overseas evangelization projects, God led him to live the ideal of the evangelical way of life in Italy. Saint Anthony lived the Franciscan experience for only eleven years, but he assimilated his ideal to such an extent that Christ and the Gospel became for him the rule of life embodied in the reality of every day.

He said in a sermon: «For you we have left everything and we have become poor. But since you are rich, we have followed you to make us rich (…). We have followed you, as the creature follows the Creator, as the children follow the Father, as the children the mother, as the hungry the bread, as the sick the doctor, as the tired the bed, as the exiles the homeland "(Sermons , II, p. 484).

3. All his preaching was a continuous and tireless proclamation of the Gospel without gloss. True, bold, limpid ad. Preaching was his way of igniting faith in souls, of purifying, comforting and enlightening them (ibid., P. 154).

He built his life on Christ. The evangelical virtues, and especially poverty of spirit, meekness, humility, chastity, mercy and the courage of peace, were the constant themes of his preaching.

His testimony was so luminous that on my pilgrimage to his shrine in Padua on September 12, 1982, I too wanted to present him to the Church, as Pope Pius XII had already done, with the title of evangelical man. Indeed, Saint Anthony taught in an eminent way to make Christ and the Gospel a constant point of reference in daily life and in private and public moral choices, suggesting that everyone nourish from this source their courage for a coherent and attractive proclamation. of the message of salvation.

4. Precisely because he was in love with Christ and his Gospel, Saint Anthony "illustrated with loving intelligence the divine wisdom that he had drawn from the assiduous reading of Sacred Scripture" (Pius XII, Apostolic Letter Antoniana Sollemnia, March 1 1946).

Sacred Scripture was for him the terra parturiens, which engenders faith, establishes morality and attracts the soul with its sweetness (cf. Sermons, Prologue, I, 1). The soul, gathered in loving meditation on Sacred Scripture, opens - according to its expression - ad divinitatis arcanum. During his journey towards God, Antony fed his mind from this arcane abyss, finding there wisdom and doctrine, apostolic strength and hope, tireless zeal and fervent charity.

From the thirst for God and the longing for Christ the theology was born which, for Saint Anthony, was the irradiation of love for Christ: wisdom of inestimable value and science of knowledge, a new song "in aure Dei dulce resonans et animam innovans" gently into God's ears and renews the spirit] (cf. Sermons, III, 55, and I, 225).

Saint Anthony lived this method of study with a passion that accompanied him throughout his Franciscan life. Saint Francis himself had appointed him to teach sacred theology to the brothers, recommending, however, that in this occupation he be careful not to extinguish the spirit of prayer and devotion. He used all the scientific instruments of that time to deepen the knowledge of the evangelical truth and make his announcement more understandable. The success of his preaching confirms that he knew how to speak with the same language as his listeners, effectively transmitting the contents of the faith and making the popular culture of his time embrace the values ​​of the Gospel.

5. I sincerely hope that the celebrations of this VIII centenary in honor of Saint Anthony will allow the whole Church to know better and better the testimony, the message, the wisdom and the missionary ardor of such a great disciple of Christ and of the Poverello of Assisi. . His preaching, his writings and, above all, his holiness of life, also offer the men of our time very lively and stimulating indications about the commitment necessary for the new evangelization. Today, as then, there is an urgent need for a renewed catechesis, founded on the word of God, especially in the Gospels, to make the Christian world understand once again the value of revelation and faith.

The community of believers must always renew its awareness of the perennial relevance of the Gospel, recognizing that, through its preaching, the figure of the Incarnate Word reappears in us, as happened in the authentic, current preaching of Saint Anthony, close to our history, rich in grace and capable of awakening an intense outpouring of supernatural charity in hearts.

The writings of Saint Anthony, so rich in biblical doctrine, and in which spiritual and moral exhortations abound, are also a model and a guide for preaching today. Among other things, they amply show the extent to which homiletical teaching, in the liturgical celebration, can make the faithful experience the active presence of Christ, who continues to proclaim the Gospel to his people in order to obtain their response in prayer and song ( cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium, 33).

I therefore exhort all members of the great Franciscan family to make an effort to spread an adequate knowledge of the holy miracle worker, so revered in Christian communities throughout the world. May God please that among the friars of the Franciscan orders they revive feelings of authentic fervor in the proclamation of the true faith, together with the attentive and diligent care of the preaching, the knowledge and the esteem of the word of God and the incessant and painstaking dedication to the new evangelization, already on the threshold of the third Christian millennium.

As I ask the Lord, Teacher and Shepherd of all souls, who, through the intercession of Saint Anthony, distinguished preacher and patron of the poor, grant everyone to follow the teachings of the Gospel faithfully and generously, I impart a special Apostolic Blessing to you, the entire Franciscan family and all the devotees of this great saint.

From the Vatican, June 13, 1994, the sixteenth of my pontificate.

John paul ii



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