When we were in school the Irish Christian Brothers told us about “patron saints” who sat at the right hand of God. You could pray to them, or through them, and ask for intercession in different areas of special intention. An example is the well known St. Jude who is the patron saint of hopeless cases. When the tide is well out in your world and you are down to your last buck you can pray to St. Jude.

      Do understand that in the arcane ways of Holy Mother Church, as she used to be called, there are patron saints for almost everything. St. Margaret of Antioch is known as the patron saint of nurses. That is good to know. St. Michael, who wasn’t really a saint but rather an angel, is the patron saint of the fight against evil influences. Now St. Anthony of Padua is the star of this piece today. If you didn’t know, he is the patron saint of lost items. A prayer to Blessed St. Anthony would help you find anything when you lost it.

      To the matter at hand. Five years ago I lost the one and only key I had to my 1977 antique Volkswagen Westfalia camper. It is a beauty. I looked all over the house and all over the garden for weeks. Prayers to St. Anthony didn’t find the key right away. Eventually, I got a mechanic to take out the steering wheel from the camper and remove the ignition. Volkswagen Canada said the VIN number was too old to make a key. Owning an antique VW was an expensive business. I took the ignition to a locksmith but they couldn’t get a blank key for a vehicle that old.  Eventually I ordered blank keys from the other end of North America and Los Angeles, California and had them flown in. A locksmith made three keys and my VW started on the first crank. Perseverance is a virtue. 

      This week in the garden on a gravel path that was becoming overgrown, something caught my eye. There glinting in the sun was my long lost VW key. St. Anthony of Padua flashed through my mind. He wasn’t quick but he was good. It was more than a decade ago that I lost my prescription glasses somewhere out in that same garden. For their time the glasses were expensive. Blended bifocals. Prayers to St. Anthony were to no avail. Fast forward to three weeks ago when those glasses turned up in the hollow formed by three old birch trees. In that hollow, encrusted in leaves and dirt from a dozen summers, winters, falls and springs, were my long lost glasses. They must have been three or four prescriptions old because I couldn’t see much through them. They were big and of a style that reminded me of glasses of a style that Elvis used to wear. Another triumph for Blessed St. Anthony. 

      Better late than never but I should have said prayers to St. Expeditus. He was a third century Roman centurion who converted to Catholicism and was martyred. In the Catholic Church he is the patron saint of urgent solutions. He could have helped St. Anthony with the key and the glasses. A lesson learned.

You can contact Jim Furlong at [email protected]