I Found St. Anthony in Lisbon

When I was a little girl and I had lost some toys or books, I would recite this prayer, which I actually learned from my younger sister Mary Mae, from my heart: "Dear St. Anthony, please come around. My _______ is lost and can't be found."

- JOANNE RAE M. RAMIREZ

And indeed, I would find the lost toy. Perhaps it was the nanny who found it while cleaning and then propped it back on the shelf. Or not.

Anyway, the lost toy that turned up after I prayed to St. Anthony made my child's heart believe in the power of prayer. To a child who has virtually no cares in the world, to lose a precious doll is devastating—and to find it after a heartfelt prayer, a gift from Above. When a child realizes from experience that prayers are indeed answered, the child grows up into an adult who believes in miracles, lost things that are found, lost causes that are resolved, and that as Alfred Lord Tennyson once wrote, "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of."

On a recent trip to Lisbon prior to a cruise on the Scenic Azure on the Douro River, I looked for the church of St. Anthony, after I had heard of it from a dear friend. She said St. Anthony, a 13th-century saint, a Franciscan friar and protégé of St. Francis of Assisi, "actively sought" him out when he was once facing challenges in life. Then and now, a saint of countless answered prayers.

Is he the same Anthony as the famous St. Anthony of Padua, I wondered? I had been to the basilica of St. Anthony in Padua (or Padova) and it is a huge church with a queue snaking into its main entrance.