Spiritual writings of Saint Anthony of Padua

To willingly listen to the Word of God is a great sign of predestination. Just as an exile who seeks and takes pleasure in news from his homeland shows that he loves his country, so it can be said that the Christian who listens with interest to those who speak to him of the heavenly Homeland already has his heart turned toward Heaven.

Writings by Saint Anthony of Padua

It is the poor, the simple, the humble, who thirst for the word of Life and for the water of Wisdom.
On the contrary, worldly people who get drunk on the golden chalice of vice, the learned, the counselors of the powerful, believe me, do not allow the divine Message to be announced to them.

Prayer

"Prayer is an outpouring of affection toward God, a devout and familiar conversation with Him, a rest for the mind illuminated from above that seeks to enjoy Him as much as possible. Prayer is also the petitioning of temporal goods necessary for the present life, but those who ask the Lord for them with a true Christian spirit always subordinate their own will to His, even if they are driven to pray solely by need: only the heavenly Father knows what is truly necessary for us in the temporal order.

Prayer is finally an action of thanksgiving, that is, recognizing the benefits received and offering all our works in return to God, so that our prayer may be continuous."

Contrition

"How should contrition for sin be? Listen to the psalmist: 'A contrite spirit is a sacrifice to God, a contrite and humbled heart, O God, you will not despise' (Ps 51:19). In these words are indicated the compunction of spirit for sins, the reconciliation of the sinner, universal contrition for all sins, and the continual humiliation of the repentant sinner. The spirit of the penitent, when it is torn and covered with wounds, is a holocaust pleasing to God. He reconciles Himself with the sinner and the sinner with Him."

"By grace, it is the Holy Spirit Himself who, like a bridegroom, unites with the soul that penitent love has purified. Divine weddings from which the Christian is born, an heir of eternal life. Therefore we can say to the Son of God: 'Behold, we are your bone and your flesh.'

Lord Jesus, have mercy on our weakness, forgiveness for our sins! Have mercy on us, your members, O Lord; reach out to us your fraternal hand, so that every day of our earthly life may be a step forward in our pilgrimage toward the heavenly Home. Grant that we sinners may draw near to You, that we may listen to You. Deign to welcome us with You and refresh us at the Table of eternal life!"

Faith

"Faith is the principal virtue, and he who does not believe is like those Jews who rebelled against Moses in the desert. Without faith, one does not enter the kingdom of God; it is the life of the soul. The Christian is the one who, with the eye of the heart illuminated by faith, perceives the mysteries of God and makes a public profession of them.

True faith is accompanied by charity. To believe in God, for the Christian, does not mean so much to believe that God exists, nor even to believe that He is truthful; it means to believe by loving, to believe by abandoning oneself to God, uniting and conforming oneself to Him."

Hope

"Hope is the expectation of future goods... Despair lacks the strength to progress because he who loves sin cannot strive for future glory. However, hope must not become presumption, but must be accompanied by fear, which is the beginning of wisdom. Indeed, no one can come to taste the sweetness of wisdom without first tasting the bitterness of fear. As long as man hopes, God grants him forgiveness, grace; if man repents of his sins, he can hope for the sweetness of forgiveness."

Love

"There is only one love toward God and neighbor: it is the Holy Spirit, because God is love. Love, says Saint Augustine, has received this rule from God: that we love God for His own sake with all our heart, and our neighbor as ourselves; that is, for the same end and for the same reason why we love ourselves, therefore in goodness.

How great is the love of God for us! He sends His only-begotten Son so that we may love Him, without whom to live is to die, since he who does not love remains in death. If God has loved us to such an extent as to give us His beloved Son, through whom all things were made, we too must love one another."

"We must firmly believe and openly confess that the same body that was born of the Virgin, was hung upon the cross, lay in the tomb, rose on the third day, ascended to the right hand of the Father, is the same body given by Jesus as food to the Apostles and the same that the Church consecrates every day and distributes to the faithful.

On the altar, under the signs of bread and wine, Jesus Himself is present, clothed in human flesh with which He offered Himself to the divine Father and even now daily offers Himself. He who receives Him is filled with every good: temptations are dampened, bitternesses are turned into joys, and piety finds its nourishment."

The Cross

"The Christian must lean upon the Cross of Christ as the wayfarer leans on a staff when undertaking a long journey. He must have the Passion of Christ deeply impressed upon his mind and heart, because only from such a source derives the word of life and peace, of grace and truth. Let us turn our eyes to Jesus, our Lord, nailed to the Cross of salvation! Let us crucify our flesh to His Cross by mortifying the senses; let us weep for the iniquities we have committed and for those of our neighbor."

The Soul

"In contact with the Holy Spirit, the soul gradually loses its stains, its coldness, its hardness, and is entirely transformed into the fire that burns it; indeed, the Holy Spirit is breathed into man to instill in him a likeness of Himself, as much as is possible. Under His action, man is purified, is warmed, arrives at the love of God, as the Apostle says: 'The divine love has been poured into our hearts, through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us' (Rom 5:5).

Yes, the soul of the righteous, in which the Holy Spirit dwells with His ineffable gifts, becomes fragrant with divinity like a room in which a precious balm is kept."

The Light of the World

"You are the light of the world! Behold, the sun is a source of heat and light. Well, just as from their Source, so from the witnesses of Christ must flow life and doctrine for the benefit of others. Let your life be ardent with charity, let your doctrine be clear.

Crystal, struck by the rays of the sun, reflects them. Thus the believer, illuminated by the radiance of Christ, must emit sparks of words and examples and ignite his neighbor."

O my soul

"O Christian soul, if you are faithful in the earthly trial, one day you will see what no human eye has ever beheld. For you, indeed, it is said in Scripture: 'What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him' (1 Cor 2:9)... Then your eye will truly be satisfied, because you will see Him who sees everything. Then you will truly be a queen, you who are now a slave in exile; you will be full of delight in body and soul glorified. Your heart will expand in an indescribable joy. Now, as pilgrims of Heaven, we tiredly rest our heads on the stone that is constancy in faith... but one day we will rest our head upon the breast of Jesus, like the Apostle John at the Last Supper.

How great is your sweetness, O Lord! You keep it hidden for those who honor You. Yes, You keep it hidden so that we may seek it more fervently, because in seeking it we find it, and in loving it we taste it for eternity!"

Humility

At the foundation of asceticism, the Saint places humility, the root and mother of all virtues. Humility makes known to man himself and God. As fire reduces high things to ash and lowers them, so humility forces the proud to bend and humble themselves, repeating the words of Genesis: "Dust you are, and unto dust you shall return" (3:19). The truly humble man considers himself a worm, a son of a worm and of corruption. The contempt of self (*contemptus sui*) is the principal virtue of the just man, by which he, a worm of the earth, contracts and stretches out to reach heavenly goods. Pride is the most serious sin before God, and humility is the noblest of virtues. It supports with modesty the ignoble and dishonest things and is aided by divine grace.

Humility is compared to a flower, because like a flower it has the beauty of color, the sweetness of fragrance, and the hope of fruit. "When I see a flower, I hope for the fruit; so when I see a humble person, I hope for his heavenly beatitude."

Saint Anthony places the seat of the virtue of humility in the heart. As the heart regulates the life of the body, so humility presides over the life of the soul. As the heart is the first organ to live and the last to cease to exist, so the virtue of humility dies together with him. If the cardiac muscle cannot bear either pain or a severe illness without compromising the life of the other organs, the virtue of humility can neither complain about offenses received nor fret about the well-being of others, because if it fails, the edifice of the other virtues goes into ruin.

Man's advancement on the path of perfection is proportional to his lowering, since everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. The concern to make himself "little," to put his merits in the shade and his faults in the light, to guard against every assault of pride, is vivid in Anthony.

"You, ash and dust, what are you proud of? Of the holiness of your life? But it is the spirit that sanctifies; not yours, but God's. Does the praise the people reserve for your speeches perhaps give you pleasure? But it is the Lord who gives the gift of eloquence and wisdom. What is your tongue, if not a pen in the hand of a scribe?" "If a flatterer says to you: 'You are expert and know many things,' it is as if he said to you: 'You are possessed' (the Greeks say *daimonion* for one who has profound knowledge of things). You must answer him with Christ: 'I am not possessed,' because from myself I know nothing and nothing good is in me; I glorify my God, attribute everything to Him, and render Him glory. He is the beginning of all wisdom and all knowledge." The virtuous man "holds onto his faults along with the beautiful things he does, for his own humiliation. And not being able to overcome them, despite their smallness, is for him a continuous reminder to live in humility."

Obedience

Intimately connected with humility, as its most immediate offshoot, is obedience. If the heart is humble, the senses of the body are obedient. From humility is born obedience." Obedience, writes the Saint, raises man above himself and illuminates his path of holiness, even if among its qualities obedience must count that of being "blind."

With singular intuition, Anthony affirms that with obedience the visions of heaven are opened by divine grace: "You will never manage to see if you are not obedient. If you are deaf to the voice of the one who commands, you will also be blind. Obey, therefore, with the affection of your heart, so that you may see with the eye of contemplation. God places an eye in the heart when He infuses the light of contemplation into the one who obeys."

Charity

The life of the Christian, the Saint poetically observes, unfolds on earth just as the rainbow majestically stretches from one point of the sky to another. The colors of the iris are varied, but fiery red and cerulean blue predominate. Similarly, the life of the good Christian is colored with virtues that are blended, enveloped, and illuminated by the sparkling flame of the love of God and the love of neighbor. Love must accompany all virtues, since, notes Saint Anthony with a domestic image, "just as a table is poor and unadorned without bread, so are virtues without love."

Poverty

Saint Anthony exalts the importance of poverty in the spiritual life. He aims above all at absolute poverty, lived with such personal enthusiasm by the first sons of the Poor Man of Assisi. With poverty, he intended to literally follow in the footsteps of Christ. Poverty is only the way to Christ, a participation in His kingdom.

Poverty has salvific value for man. It is the way to salvation. More than that: it is the way that leads him to participate in the redemptive work of Christ Himself.

It was poverty that had struck the imagination and attracted the heart of Anthony ever since he had seen the sons of the Poor Man of Assisi begging for alms at the door of the monastery in Coimbra, where he then resided as an Augustinian canon. That day-to-day living of work and charity, that possessing nothing, neither individually nor communally, undoubtedly detached itself from the discipline of the ancient monastic Orders and represented a higher step on the ladder of moral perfection.

Poverty is true wealth; it guards and generates humility"; it is the source of spiritual joy; poverty frees man from the desires that bind him to things. And from liberation to liberation, poverty leads man to the glory of heaven, where he plunges into the ineffable mystery of divinity.

Saint Anthony remained faithful to his love for poverty until death. He spent his last days in Camposampiero, a guest of Count Tiso, the feudal lord of the place, but not in some room of his rich castle, rather in the solitude of a hanging cell prepared on an ancient walnut tree that reminded him of the miserable huts of the hermitage of Montepaolo.

Shortly before dying, intent on drafting his *Sermones festivi*, the Saint let slip a lament about the reluctance that so many showed toward the ideal of absolute poverty: "How many are there today," he wrote, "who would willingly and for a long time live in strict poverty, if they knew for certain that they could one day possess in exchange the kingdom of France or of Spain! And yet there is no one today who wishes to live in the true poverty of Christ, to earn the kingdom of heaven."