St. Anthony of Padua

Fernando Martins de Bulhões was born around 1195 in Lisbon, Portugal, into a family of minor nobility. He received his early education at the cathedral school of Lisbon and later joined the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine at the nearby monastery of São Vicente, where he was ordained a priest. Around 1220, he was transferred to the Augustinian house at Coimbra, an important center of learning in central Portugal, where he devoted himself to study and contemplation. His time at Coimbra exposed him to the writings of the early Franciscan martyrs, whose example would soon redirect the course of his life.

Fernando's vocation changed dramatically in 1220 when the relics of five Franciscan friars who had been martyred in Morocco were brought to Coimbra for translation. Deeply moved by their witness, he obtained permission to leave the Augustinians and join the Franciscans, taking the name Anthony in honor of Saint Anthony the Great of Egypt. He soon set out for Morocco himself, hoping to preach to the Moors, but illness forced him to abandon the mission and return to Europe. His ship was blown off course, and he ended up in Messina, Sicily, where he joined the Franciscan community in Italy.

Anthony's gifts as a preacher emerged almost by accident. At a 1222 gathering of Franciscans and Dominicans in Forlì, he was called upon to preach when no one else was prepared, and his sermon reportedly astonished those present. He was then assigned to preach throughout northern Italy and southern France, where his command of Scripture, his knowledge of languages, and his austere manner of life drew enormous crowds. He is traditionally credited with the famous sermon to the fish at Rimini, a story that has become one of the most beloved images in Franciscan hagiography, though its historical basis is debated by scholars. He served for a time as a theological lecturer at the University of Padua and helped draft the earliest Franciscan rule known as the Rule of 1223.

Anthony died on June 13, 1231, at the age of about 36, at the Poor Clares convent in Arcella near Padua, and he was canonized less than a year later by Pope Gregory IX in 1232, an unusually swift process. He is buried in the Basilica of Saint Anthony in Padua, a major pilgrimage site to this day. Among the relics venerated there is his tongue, which was found incorrupt when his tomb was opened in 1350 and has since been displayed as a sign of his gift of preaching. He was later declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XII in 1946, joining a small group of saints honored for the depth of their theological teaching as well as their holiness.