His story
Both he and St Anthony the Great, the Egyptian monk of the 300s, are often called simply St Anthony, but the saint people ask about lost things is Anthony of Padua.
He was born in Lisbon in 1195 and joined a religious community just outside the city when he was 15 years old. In 1220 he saw the bodies of Franciscan friars killed in Morocco brought to Coimbra, where he was living. He became a Franciscan himself and sailed for Morocco, hoping to preach to the Muslims and die for Christ. Illness sent him home, and a storm drove his ship to Sicily instead. When no one was ready to preach at an ordination in Forlì, he was told to speak, and everyone who heard him was astonished. From then on he was sent out as a preacher. He died near Padua in 1231, when he was 36 years old, and the pope who had heard him preach made him a saint within a year.
His feast day
13 June: His feast in the Catholic Church.
The Roman Martyrology, 1916, 13 June; the General Roman Calendar
Why people ask St Anthony of Padua
Lost things
Many Catholics say an old rhyme as they search: “Tony, Tony, turn around, something’s lost and must be found.” People were asking him for lost things long before the rhyme. This hymn already counts lost things found again among the wonders done through him. A story first written down more than a century after he died tells how a novice who was leaving the friars stole the book of psalms Anthony taught from. Anthony prayed, and the novice brought the book back and asked to rejoin the friars.
Charles Paolino, “St Anthony turns lost into found”, L’Osservatore Romano, 10 June 2009; “St. Anthony of Padua”, Catholic Encyclopedia, 1907; Eusèbe Clop, “Le répons miraculeux Si quæris miracula”, Études franciscaines 31 (1914); Léon de Kerval, L’évolution et le développement du merveilleux dans les légendes de S. Antoine de Padoue, 1906, pages 231 to 232
Where it comes from
Who wrote it
No one knows who wrote this modern prayer, which many Catholic parishes and websites print.
“Prayer to St. Anthony to find an item that was lost”, Aleteia, 2020
The rhyme
Many say a short rhyme instead: “Tony, Tony, look around. Something’s lost and must be found!” Or: “Dear St. Anthony, please come around: something is lost, and it cannot be found.”
“Prayer to St. Anthony to find an item that was lost”, Aleteia, 2020
