Pope Francis has addressed the following message to all Christians on the occasion of the 2020 Lenten season, a time of conversion and penitence in preparation for Easter:
“We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor 5:20)
The Feast of the Translation of the Saint’s Relics, commonly called the Feast of the Tongue, will be held on Sunday 16 February. This is the second, most important feast celebrating St Anthony after the June 13 feast, and marks the discovery of his uncorrupt tongue over 750 years ago, more than 30 years after his death. This scientifically inexplicable phenomenon is what faith calls a miracle, seeing that the relic of the tongue, the instruments used by St Anthony for preaching, is still visible and uncorrupt after many centuries.
“May the Blessed Virgin, Health of the Sick and Mother of the Living, be our support and our hope.”
Pope John Paul II
Saint Anthony is the Saint of Miracles, and those who are sick lovingly place their trust in his intercession.
If, among your family members or your friends, there is someone who is sick you may send us their names: on 11 February, World Day of Prayer for the Sick, we friars will pray for their healing.
This is the schedule of liturgical celebrations during Christmas and the New Year at the Basilica of St Anthony in Padua, Italy, which may be followed live by connecting to our web page. In this way we are bringing St Anthony’s voice directly to the houses of those devotees (in Italy and throughout the world) who cannot come to Padua.
When you give presents to the people you love, remember that the giving of gifts is not a human invention. God started it all when he gave us the priceless gift of His Son in order to save humanity.
Jesus did not come to earth as an explorer or a tourist, nor as an educator or an itinerant preacher. Jesus came as a Savior seeking to save ‘the lost’, those who were estranged from God. And we are all lost without God – lost without hope, lost without a future.
From Friday, November 29 to Sunday, December 8 two first-class relics will be visiting the Catholic Diocese of San Diego in sunny California in spiritual preparation for the Advent season. Fr. Bortolino Maistrello will bring the reliquaries from the Basilica of Saint Anthony in Padua to Southern California.
