Anthony, the miracle saint
Ever wondered where the name Anthony in the film Amar, Akbar, Anthony came from?
I don’t think the director of the film, Manmohan Desai, had any particular reason to select that name except that it started with “A”, to rhyme with the other two names. Anthony is, of course, a common though distinctly Christian name going back many centuries. Christian parents, as a rule, choose the name of a particular saint to have their child baptised with.
Though there are different saints by the name of Anthony, the one whose feast the Church celebrates today (June 13) is a very popular one among common people. He was born in 1195 and died on June 13, 1231. He is also credited with many miracles involving lost people, lost things and even lost spiritual goods. The name of Saint Anthony is especially invoked for the recovery of lost items. The interesting thing is that St. Anthony rarely, if ever, disappoints those who seek his help.
Canonising a saint, as is the case with Mother Teresa, is a long-drawn process in the Church, but in the case of St. Anthony, he was canonised in less than one year after his death, despite the fact that he died at a very young age, just 36.
Born to a wealthy family in Lisbon, Portugal, St. Anthony died in Padua, Italy. His original name was Fernando Martins de Bulhões. It is a custom among Christians that when an individual joins a religious order to become a nun, a brother or a priest, as in the case of Fernando, they take on a new name, signifying that the person is now renouncing his/her old self to take on a new (religious) self. It marks the beginning of a new life, free of material, worldly concerns and ties.
St. Anthony is the most celebrated of the followers of Saint Francis of Assisi and is the patron saint of his adopted home of Padua, as well as of his native Lisbon, not to mention many other places in Portugal and in the countries of the former Portuguese empire.
In Uvari, Tamil Nadu, the church of St. Anthony is home to an ancient wooden statue that is said to have cured the entire crew of a Portuguese ship suffering from cholera. St. Anthony is said to perform many miracles daily, and Uvari is visited by pilgrims of different religions from all over south India. Christians in India, especially from Tamil Nadu, have great reverence for St. Anthony, and call him “The Miracle Saint”. Practically every Church has a statue of St. Anthony, the only saint who is depicted holding child Jesus in his arms.
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