Challenging Role

IF WE wanted to give the period in Anthony’s life starting from the year 1227 a brief description, then the account by a contemporary expert on Anthony, Vergilio Gamboso, would seem appropriate: “Saint Anthony covered mile after mile on foot, wandering from monastery to monastery in all seasons; he covered all roads and lingered in the most important towns in his province… Italy presented at the time the vivid picture of numerous small towns constantly at war with each other: town against town, the nobility against the lower classes, and some towns against the Church. The experience of these events was devastation, looting, bitter fights, exile, deep hatred and many other evils. Draconian laws in favor of the rich and powerful emboldened them against members of the lower classes.

“Saint Anthony was given the task of visiting towns in northern Italy to bring to them the Christian message of peace and to call the people to a crusade of social harmony and goodness. In Padua, his favorite town, he induced the local government to moderate the law against insolvent debtors. And in his fiery and enthusiastic sermons the Saint with all his wit and learning fought against one of the great evils of his time: usury.”

Preferential option

This, however, only describes the external aspect of his activities which, perhaps, is best expressed with a modern concept: the preferential option for the poor and the disenfranchised. In this way Anthony was following ‘his’ Francis. Both of them had discovered their spiritual paths from the Gospel and also from the downtrodden, towards whom they were constantly in empathy.

Then there was a more inner aspect of his activity, which had to do with the Franciscan Order. In this respect, Father Vergilio Gamboso writes, “For three years, from 1227 to 1230, he (Anthony) was the guardian spirit who cared for the friars entrusted to him. The first descriptions of his life all agree and show emphatically that the many different apostolic activities did not distract the Saint at all from his clearly laid out and delicate duty: that of maintaining his fellow brothers along the path of their sublime Franciscan ideal.”

This statement brings to light an important problem that Anthony and, after him, the increasing number of Franciscan friars had to face: how is Francis’ ethos, style and way of living the Gospel to be passed on from one period to another without betraying its original authoritative ideal and force?

In any case in his efforts as carer of the souls of the brothers entrusted to him, Anthony looked after them “like a mother,” to quote a reliable source. This maternal characteristic reflects a genuine Franciscan concern which Saint Francis himself had demanded of his brothers in his rule of 1223, the third produced by him, and that which became the definitive one still in use today. It requires the brothers to act “as a mother” to one another: “…wherever brothers meet one another, let them act like members of a common family. And let them securely make their needs known to one another, for if a mother loves and cares for her carnal son, how much more should one love and care for his spiritual son?”

University town

In his activities in northern Italy, Anthony came to spend more and more time in Padua. Not much has been said about this town so far, despite the fact that Anthony’s name would in the future become closely associated with the city – one wonders if he ever suspected that one day his name would become almost analogous with his elective city.

What kind of town was Padua in Anthony’s days? First of all, it was a town that had been chosen by the Franciscans as a centre of their operations in northern Italy. Padua boasted between 10,000 and 15,000 inhabitants, and was in the process of growing rapidly; it was also experiencing many of the changes that were taking place in the political, economic and religious landscape of Italy. Moreover, Padua was also the bishop’s seat.

Even though Padua and its surroundings had a large population of low-income people and only a few noble and rich middle class families, it enjoyed a reputation as a forward-looking university town. In 1222 a group of professors and students from the highly esteemed University of Bologna had moved to Padua and started offering courses.

They were able to link up with local traditions, including the already existing schools run by the bishop and other religious Orders. Perhaps because there was this tradition of the religious Orders in Padua, the town slowly became Anthony’s favorite place. It is more than likely that Anthony took month-long breaks in a friary in Padua during the long, foggy winters between 1227 and 1230 to “charge up his spiritual batteries” and dedicate himself to his collection of sermon notes.

Social healer

In many ways Padua was a town in which the social and spiritual changes sweeping Europe were being felt in a particularly evident way. So it is no wonder that in the four years Anthony spent in Padua, the town went through four different mayors, a sign of how unsettling and difficult those times must have been.

The Assidua highlights Anthony’s many “roles” in Padua’s daily life: “Anthony called back to brotherly peace those who disagreed with each other, and gave freedom to those who were imprisoned. He required that whatever was taken in usury or through violence be restituted. It reached the point that many, having mortgaged houses and fields, placed the money at his feet and, with his counsel, gave back to those who had been defrauded whatever had been gained by extortion or bribery. He freed prostitutes from sinful and disgraceful activities, and restrained thieves, notorious for their misdeeds, from coming into illegal contact with what belonged to others.”

This description of our Saint’s activity in Padua we assume was given by an eye-witness. Anthony was a public figure without a doubt, and therefore represented a moral point of reference in northern Italy, a presence that brought about a certain pacification in social relationships. Last but not least he was a source of support for the poor. A question comes to mind: how did he manage to do it?

Jesus & Gospel

The Order to which he belonged was going through a difficult transitional period; the town where he had taken up temporary residence, Padua, was being shaken by political and social unrest for which, as usual, the poorest sectors of society were paying the greatest price; on top of that, he was ill and constantly travelling. However, it must be said that travel for religious in authoritative positions in those days was different from now. It was not a question of finding the fastest way of overcoming long distances, but of an arrival at a destination, usually a friary, where like-minded religious people would welcome you and offer you the best accommodation they had in peaceful environments. This situation would have brought him repeated opportunities for prayer, along with bodily and spiritual renewal.

Moreover, Anthony was probably able to find time for silence, meditation and prayer, which offered the only source for a peaceful change from the political upheavals around him, during the Paduan winters, when he would dedicate his time to writing his sermon notes in the quiet of the friary. And perhaps also, the long paths between the various places he visited offered the opportunity to walk for hours and allow his thoughts to linger on the One who knew everything about usurers, tax collectors, whores and the poor: Jesus Christ and his message, the Gospel.