2023-06-13 18:07:00
June 13, 2023 / 11:07 a.m.
This Tuesday, June 13, the Catholic Church celebrates the feast of one of its most well-known and beloved saints: San Antonio de Padua. We explain why the saint born in Portugal is patron of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land.
There are two events that link the great saint with the Franciscans of the land of Jesus, as explained by the website of the Franciscans serving in the holy places.
The first episode goes back to the conflict between Turkey and England in 1917, within the framework of the First World War, during which the governor Giamal Pasciá made the decision to imprison the Franciscan friars, leaving the holy places abandoned.
Faced with this situation, the Franciscans prayed fervently to Saint Anthony of Padua, at the request of Brother Eutimio Castellani, Custodial President, who at that time replaced the Custos of the Holy Land.
The Franciscans refer that on the third day, the Latin Patriarch went to see Governor Pascía to ask him for a favor for his assistant, who was ill; to which the president responded by also allowing the release of the Italian Franciscan friars who made up the Custody.
The second episode occurred in November 2017, and the Franciscans of the Custody of the Holy Land were in danger of being imprisoned again.
After praying to San Antonio, they received a telegram from Constantinople (Turkey), which allowed them to stay in the place.
After the end of World War I, Pope Benedict XV declared Saint Anthony of Padua patron of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land.
In 2021, in the celebration of the feast of San Antonio, the Custos of the Holy Land, Francesco Patton, stressed that the saint “invites us to propose the Christian faith and the mystery of Jesus Christ in its entirety, in its organicity, in its fullness. Antonio also adds the aspect of the personal quality of the testimony”.
“Through the intercession of Saint Anthony, we ask the Lord that we too be capable of welcoming the Gospel in its fullness, without cuts or additions, without wanting to empty it of its provocative radicalism and without wanting to dilute it to be fashionable,” he stressed.
Walter Sánchez Silva is a senior writer at ACI Prensa, with more than 15 years covering Church events in Europe, America and Asia.
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