The Feast Day of St.Anthony

I have a special love for St. Anthony, perhaps because I am always losing things and he is the patron saint for finding lost objects. Every time I am in a Catholic church with a statue of him, I touch the toe and thank him for his help. I was dismayed to realize that I had forgotten his feast day on the 13th of this month, which was a Sunday. Even though I forgot him, he did not forget me.

I have prayed for months to be able to feel closer to Jesus. Because I was exposed to fundamentalist Christianity early in life, I find Jesus a remote and troubling figure. It happened that the gospel reading that day was about a sinful women who washed Jesus' feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. When the religous leaders of her day scolded her--and in fact humiliated her--Jesus defended her. If one reflects on the gutter cruelty often visited on women whose sexual behavior has not been to the liking of others, one appreciates how compassionate Jesus truly was. For the first time in my life, I LIKED Jesus as a human being. He was a compassionate and accessible man waiting to welcome all who came to him with grace and forgiveness.  I had heard this gospel reading many times but it never made an impression until that Sunday. This reading and the fact that I went to a church service I almost never go to and heard a wise and compassionate priest talk about seeing the humanity in others was a gift.