When I was first interested in Catholicism in the 1990s, and was falling in love with it,
but coming from a fiercely antiCatholic JW background I was easily offended by anything that smacked to me (even if wrongly) of “superstition” and “paganism”.
So, when I read the stories of Saint Anthony holding “The Christ Child”, I was
shocked and offended. I thought, my god, are these people idiots?? Jesus was a
33 year old MAN when he was executed on the tree, not a “Child” so how can they believe these things (only in recent very recent months, even as a Catholic, have I begun to understand how and why Christ could and would and sometimes DOES appear under the form of a child, as well as begun to understand the meaning behind devotions to “the Christ Child” or the “Infant of Prague,” etc.)??? The Infant of Prague really offended me (remember, I was still a novice) because I thought, the “Infant of Prague” is a statue, how can you have devotion to a statue (that’s NOT what the devotion IS, by the way, I have since learned), moreover, I reasoned, “of Prague???” Jesus never lived in Czechoslovakia, so where do they get this stuff? I asked myself, shocked and offended.
Then reading about Saint Anthony (( when you are studying Catholicism for the first time, don’t make my mistake of trying to take it all in at once and biting off more than you can chew, because if you come from an antiCatholic background, and do that, you WILL come across things you don’t undersand (yet), and WILL become offended and might turn away. You would be wrong and seriously mistaken to turn away )), but again,
reading back then about Saint Anthony preaching to the fishes, I thought, oh good lord,
what kind of idiocy am I getting involved in? Preaching to fishes? A donkey bowing to the sacred host? How gullible are these people, I asked myself. That and many other things, that I didn’t understand, kept me from repenting of my own sins and coming into the Faith.
Now, years later, I finally “GET” some of it, but I am still learning 2,000 years of Catholic customs even after being confirmed 13 years ago!!
The preaching to the Fishes is really not about anybody believing that FISH
could need, or want, or even begin to intelligibly grasp ANYTHING, let alone the gospel.
It was rather, a miracle wrought by God through Saint Anthony, to show
the rebellious people that if THEY would not listen to his gospel preaching, then
DUMB ANIMALS WOULD.
This is analogous to what Jesus said to the Sadducee, Roman-appointed High Priests in 33 AD on Palm Sunday. They, the priests, fearing a violent Roman Crackdown, saw the crowds carrying him into the city singing
“HOSANNA TO THE SON OF DAVID !!! HOSANNA IN THE HIGHEST !!! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD, even the King of Israel!! Hosanna!!”
The King of Israel? THE Son of David? This, they knew, their fellow Jews regarded as titles for the messianic king not only of Israel but of the WHOLE world, and these crowds were calling him that, with Roman soldiers all over the place, and THEY knew what those words meant, too, to the people. So the Priests ordered Jesus to tell his supporters to SHUT UP because they were allegedly ignoramuses who did not understand the Law
(( they feared a violent Roman crackdown if these crowd-claims kept being loudly made )).
So Jesus turned around and told them,
Why, If they were to shut up, the very ROCKS and STONES would start to sing!!
i.e., When God wants his truth attested to, it WILL be, even by inanimate objects like rocks and stones. Same thing with Saint Anthony and the Fishes. If intelligent people, the townsfolk, stubbornly refused to gather to hear the word of God, then
God would see to it, to shame them, that DUMB ANIMALS, FISH, would gather to hear it, meaning that the fish, in this case, were more worthy and decent than THEY WERE.
Thank you for your above post and for the link !!!
God bless you,
Jaypeeto4
you go to google and search for st.anthony padua shrine,voila,you’ll be taken to plentiful of st.anthony sites,so you choose this link/site : messenger of st.anthony - the portal of the world of st.anthony.You’ll be taken to this great site,good luck and God bless!