Graces at Christmas and in the New Year, from St. Anthony of Padua

May God bless all of you who support the Confraternity of Penitents with your prayers and in other ways. As a thanks to you, we share this reflection from St. Anthony of Padula. May you have a blessed Christmas and a joyful new year.
 

This shall be a sign unto you: You shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. [Lk 2.12]

This shall be a sign unto you: You shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. [Lk 2.12]

Notice these two things: humility and poverty. Happy the man who receives this sign on his forehead and in his hand (that is, in word and deed). What do the words, You shall find the infant, mean, if not: You will find wisdom babbling, power made week, majesty laid low, the immense made small, the rich made poor, the Lord of angels lying in a stable, and the Food of angels made like the fodder of animals, the unlimited confined to a narrow manger? This, then, will be  sign to you, so that you do not perish like the Egyptians or the people of Jericho.

And so, glory be to God the Father on high, and in earth peace to men of good will, for the Word Incarnate, for the Virgin giving birth, and for the Savior being born. Maybe he who is blessed forever deign to bestow that same glory on us. Amen.

--St. Anthony of Padua, Sermons for Sundays and Festivals, trans. Paul Spilsbury. Padova, Italia: Messaggero di Sant' Antonio Editrice, 2010. vol. iv, pp. 8-9

Prayer for Easter by Saint Anthony of Padua

O eyes of our loved one,

closed in the sleep of death!

O face,

on whom the angels longed to gaze,

now become pale.

O lips,

which like a honeycomb exuded words of eternal life,

now become livid.

O head,

before which the angels trembled,

now hanging limp.

Of those hands and whose touch

leprosy was cured,

life was restored,

eyesight was recovered,

devils were put to flight,

bread was multiplied –

are now pierced with nails and

stained with the precious blood!

O, the compassion of divine clemency!

O, the patience of the Father’s goodness!

O, the profound and inscrutable mystery of the divine will!

Father, you have seen your only son, equal to you,

bound like a criminal to a pillar

and scourged like a murderer.

How could you have borne this?

We thank you, Holy Father,

because the sufferings and scourges of

your beloved Son

have freed us from the shackles of sin

and from the power of evil. To you be glory for all ages. Amen.

   Saint Anthony of Padua (taken from two of his sermons)