Interview in L’Osservatore Romano with Father Ramina, rector of the basilica, vacation spot of thousands and thousands of pilgrims: “A common folks is dedicated to the Saint. He conquers so many individuals as a result of he is aware of how one can welcome and hearken to everybody, with out excluding anybody.”
Alvise Sperandio – Vatican Metropolis
Hundreds of thousands of individuals flock to the tomb of Saint Anthony of Padua yearly, lining as much as pray and contact the tombstone. And on June 13, a liturgical reminiscence devoted to him (anniversary of his demise), the pilgrimage is renewed incessantly with hundreds of visits from daybreak to nightfall on one of many brightest days of the yr. Antonio (Lisbon, 1195 – Padua, 1231), Franciscan priest and Physician of the Church canonized in 1232, is likely one of the most beloved saints on the planet, “the Saint” par excellence, simply as Padua is recognized within the collective creativeness as “town of the Saint.” Within the pontifical basilica, ruled for 3 years by Father Antonio Ramina, a 54-year-old Vincentian, of the Franciscan order of the Minor Conventual Brothers, every thing is prepared for the occasion, anticipated by the celebration of the “Tredicina” (the 13 previous Tuesdays). Tomorrow this system can be intense: within the morning, lots with the pontifical delegate, Archbishop Diego Giovanni Ravelli, and the bishop of Padua, Claudio Cipolla; within the followingnoon, that of the provincial minister of the Minor Conventual Brothers, Father Roberto Brandinelli, adopted by the solemn procession via the streets of town filled with trustworthy following the wood statue and the relics of the saint.
Father Ramina, who’s Antonio for you?
It was not an instantaneous discovery. I entered the convent extra impressed by the determine of Saint Francis than by anything. I got here to know Saint Anthony, who, as we all know, knew the Poverello of Assisi as an authentic interpreter of Franciscanism. He fascinated me for 2 causes: his love for the phrase of God, with nice emphasis on silence, meditation and prayer, and the extraordinary power of his preaching all the time in favor of the poor.
Why is that this saint so revered?
It’s kind of of a thriller: there are lots of “good” saints who’re near folks. I consider that Saint Anthony conquers so many individuals as a result of he is aware of how one can welcome and hearken to everybody, with out excluding anybody. And since he transmits to everybody the emotional dimension of religion.
Who’re the devotees of Saint Anthony of Padua?
It’s a common folks: there are women and men, younger and outdated, wealthy and poor, sick and wholesome, folks with excessive {qualifications} or not. Not essentially believers, quite the opposite. The friars who guard the basilica see how everybody really approaches his tomb as a result of his name has no obstacles or variations.
What are folks on the lookout for in San Antonio?
Above all consolation and help. Saint Anthony is a touring companion, a buddy on the private path of every of us. Many will ask for his intercession for well being issues, asking for therapeutic, miracles, thanks. On this sense, the quite a few ex-voto images displayed close to the tomb are a strong testimony and present the common face of the Church. Gratitude for the items acquired can be very sturdy.
What’s there within the gesture of touching the tombstone?
It’s not magic or superstition, however it reminds us that our life of religion can not solely be thought, feeling, good intention, however it is usually coming into right into a lived life, right into a concrete story. This steady pilgrimage helps us re-motivate ourselves on our journey of religion.
Each query of well being all the time implies a query of salvation.
When an individual approaches the tomb due to an sickness, he rightly asks for therapeutic. However the true miracle, as additionally occurs in Lourdes, is that different areas open up in prayer. The evangelical “ask and it is going to be given to you” is excellent, however we should not neglect that it doesn’t essentially arrive. What counts is to entrust ourselves to God who’s there, at our aspect, with our wounds and fatigue and by no means abandons us.
What’s the relevance of the saint in immediately’s opulent and super-technological society?
He meditated quite a bit and spoke forcefully. Antonio is the saint of interiority. He by no means anxious regarding exhibiting off or exhibiting who is aware of what. Being and showing in him go collectively. “I’m what I appear,” he favored to say. Let’s all study it.
What’s the level of contact with Saint Francis of Assisi?
Each weren’t all for exegesis or tradition itself, however moderately that the voice of the Lord, the decision to the vocation, be acknowledged within the phrase of God. There’s a profoundly correct saying: “let phrases stop and deeds converse.”
The procession via Padua is an indication of religion and testimony in an more and more de-Christianized “civis.”
It’s to the extent that it is aware of how one can generate hyperlinks. Those that stroll behind the statue are an ecclesial neighborhood that finds and acknowledges itself in religion in God via the intercession of Saint Anthony, and all the time to the extent that it depends on mediation, even when it isn’t totally understood.
In these instances of warfare, how can San Antonio assist peace?
Within the Antonian manifesto for the month of June, the saint is seen dealing with the tyrant asking him to surrender violence: he doesn’t succeed, however his braveness to specific compelling causes in favor of peace is prodigious. He’s a bit just like the Pope who incessantly, every time, invokes peace, however he doesn’t appear to be listened to. Antonio teaches us not to surrender in our efforts and to advertise a peace that, to start with, should spring from our hearts and our every day lives. We’re all known as to conversion. Peace on the planet relies on the highly effective of the earth, but additionally on our private dedication.
His greeting “Peace and Good” is a hymn to life.
Peace is the will that nobody ever really feel so removed from God that they can’t start once more, and even get better following the falls brought regarding, within the first place, by our sins. Whereas kindness means on the lookout for lovely relationships, maybe easy however genuine, the one ones which are worthwhile in life.
