Click here for a previous acknowledgment of the miraculous helpfulness of St. Anthony.
Rather than getting into my long and complex lifelong spiritual journey, I will just summarize a relevant portion:
I am a Protestant, but in the tender years of my youth I was either exposed to Catholicism or, arguably, even raised "somewhat Catholic" while being raised "somewhat Lutheran" at the very same time. An epic battle took place over how I and my sister Mary would be raised. Protestantism won the war, but Catholicism settled in for a long, determined insurgency.
So even though I am Protestant through and through, there are what might be called "Catholic bones in my body" which cause me, from time to time, to say a Hail Mary or seek the assistance of Saint Anthony in finding a lost object.
It was not the teachings of my youth, however, that brought Saint Anthony into my life but an adjunct college professor of strong Roman Catholic faith who I used to work for at the University of Minnesota...
And upon one occasion when a lost item absolutely had to be found, she told me "Just pray to Saint Anthony." This I took to be the equivalent of an order, and to please my professor (and because I truly had no problem with it) I prayed the Saint Anthony Prayer which I did not know, but she taught me.
Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony/
Look all around/
Something is lost/
Which must be found
And miraculously the object turned up.
"Saint Anthony has never failed me," the professor said, almost casually. This, I decided, was something good and useful to have in one's life.
A couple days ago, I looked almost everywhere for an important object. I prayed the Saint Anthony prayer but the object hadn't turned up. I had actually given up and was about to drive four states away without the important object. As I was turning the keys to start my car a thought came to mind...
Your backpack. The pouch on the backpack you aren't using right now, but you were using a few weeks ago.
I looked for the backpack. I looked in the pouch. And there was the object. Nobody except possibly a timid opossum was around to hear me cry out:
"SAINT ANTHONY HAS NEVER FAILED ME!!!!"
As a Protestant, I don't have any explanation for this except that God is bigger than denominational labels. In my youth, two powerful denominations warred to fill me with their religious faith...
And both sides won.
8 comments:
RICHARD DAWKINS!!! READ HIM!! All of you who rely on religion lie to yourselves and need to stop with your "faith" crap ...and once again instead of using religion for your convenience remember that religious zealot's ,with fake Christians leading the way, are killing children, raping women and beheading our fellow Americans and do not even get me started on the Crusades you sick asshole's!!!
Go stone your old lady on your father's doorstep and dash your children on the rocks and then eat a big bowl of your own shit chunks without the milk. You silly fake bastards are responsible for a whole lot of DREADFUL MISERY!
we use to say, "Tony Tony look around somethings lost and must be found"
I am aware that some say "Tony, Tony" but I am a little more formal with St. Anthony and, well, I use the words I was taught to use by the respected adjunct professor I used to work for, so I say "Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony."
For the sake of free speech I am publishing a comment that is basically anti-religious in nature.
I will answer with this: The Communists were not religious but were atheist. Will atheists claim all the terrible atrocities committed by Communists? How about the Baathist Party in Iraq, which was not atheist or agnostic but was secularist and modernist? Will secular humanists claim all the atrocities committed by the Baathists?
The bad things done in the name of religion do not disprove religion, no more than the bad things done in the name of science disprove science.
That last sentence? It's copyrighted.
Pulling out the "communist" card is a cop-out because you don't want the Muslims on your fucking ass. Your reasoning is inane and so are you.
Any universally knowledgeable person, let's take for example a fully legitimate and accredited top scientist like Dawkins, will shred your rationale relentlessly...oh well, John, I know you know better and you are simply a king chameleon.
Any one person who might be a Christian is still an atheist or infidel to a Muslim or Buddhist or any other Pie in the Sky crap religion. Excuse making fakes is what all of you Theist's are.
Now go pray and get your self-righteous ego's emboldened before you start spewing your daily bullshit on a milk crate downtown or wear your fancy robes and headdresses vomiting your racism and misogyny downtown. You guy's come in all shade's and hue's so let the asshole's fall where they may.
Why in the name of all that is holy are you putting an apostrophe on "shades" and "hues?"
'scusey moi...idid not see herr red squigly line beeyotch
God bless you and I take back everything stupid that has been said. St. Anthony humbled me in an eerie manner and I am stepping back and re-arranging my views on religion. I love and believe in God and it cannot be any other way.
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