Blessing Children

IMAGINE yourself back in time. You have made a pilgrimage to Padua sometime between 1232 and 1293 (Jean Rigauld, in a biography of the Saint written in 1293, records the incident mentioned here) to visit the Basilica of Saint Anthony, which was then under construction (the Basilica was completed in 1310). Pope Gregory IX canonized Anthony in 1232, just eleven months after his death, but the people recognized Anthony as a saint while he was still living.

 

Tommasino

 

You have heard that, when Anthony died in 1231, children ran through the streets of Padua, crying, “The saint is dead! The saint is dead!” You understand as you are mom to twenty month old toddler Tommasino, who is just learning to talk, and he mimics words and actions. You can picture him running through the streets with the ‘big kids’ and hollering, “Santo Morto,” while loving the way the words rhyme.

So this is the Basilica. The small church of Santa Maria Mater Domini (Holy Mary, Mother of God), where Anthony asked to be buried, is being engulfed in and surrounded by the Basilica. Just next to the Basilica is the convent which Anthony founded in 1229. What a holy place! And a busy one! Construction does not stop for pilgrims.

You wander about. Pray. Observe the builders working in brick and mortar. Glance at holy trinkets offered by an itinerant merchant. Look for a place to eat the bread you’ve brought for lunch. Where’s Tommasino? “Tommasino! Tommasino!” No toddler comes running. You go looking for him. “Tommasino!” Off to the right a cry goes up near one of the cisterns that holds water for making the bricks and mortar. Your heart leaps to your throat. Like all toddlers, Tommasino loves to imitate adults and ‘help’. Could he have seen the workers dipping water from the cistern and tried to do it, too? You begin to run and reach the cistern as a dripping man heaves a lifeless little body up from the water. “Tommasino!” No! This could not have happened! You push through the pressing crowd and claim the body of your baby. You take him, shake him, call his name. No response. Oh, God, no! A desperate impulse flashes across your mind. You remember the Saint’s love for the poor and his concern for children. A proverb from Scripture crosses your mind. “The generous will themselves be blessed, for they share their food with the poor” (Proverbs 22:9). Hardly taking time to evaluate your words, you shriek, “Saint Anthony, save my son! Spare his life and I will give the poor his weight in grain!” Almost immediately Tommasino sputters, coughs up water, and says, “Mama!” Joyful amazement sweeps you and the crowd as well.

 

Weight in grain

 

Laughing, clutching Tommasino to you, you push your way through the crowd into the town square where you find a grain merchant. You explain to him, “I made a promise to Saint Anthony. He saved my son’s life. I need Tommasino’s weight in grain.”

To Tommasino you say, “Want to go for a ride? Down and up?” He’s eager to try. “I’m going to put you on this seat,” you say as you place him on one side of the scale which immediately sinks as you hold onto your startled youngster. “Don’t move. This nice merchant will make you go up if you are very still.” Tommasino is apprehensive, but still. The merchant begins pouring grain onto the other side of the scale. Slowly Tommasino rises until the scale is balanced. To pay for this much grain takes a good bit of your pilgrimage money. No holy trinkets will go home with you. But Tommasino is worth more than any holy trinket. You pay the merchant for the heavy sack of grain and take it to the city gates where you and Tommasino fill the caps and cups of the beggars with the kernels. Your generosity is small repayment for God’s generosity to you.

 

Pondus pueri

 

This imaginative retelling is the background of Saint Anthony’s Bread, a custom which originated when a twenty month old toddler named Tommasino drowned in a pool or container of water (probably the water cistern for brick making) at the construction site at the Basilica of Saint Anthony. The distraught mother’s answered prayer was the inspiration for many similar offerings of alms for the poor to equal the weight of the person for whom the prayer was offered.  The devotion came to be called ‘pondus pueri’, the weight of the child given in alms to charity in return for protection of the child from epidemics and accidents. Over time, this practice was broadened so that petitioners to Saint Anthony would offer bread to the hungry in return for favors received. In the ancient Diocese of Apt in southeastern France, bishops sanctioned this devotion. Into the breviary, they inserted blessings of seed grain to insure a good harvest and blessings of infants in exchange for wheat, to match the infant’s weight, to be given to the poor. 

The children’s blessing reads:

We humbly beseech thy clemency, our Lord Jesus Christ, through the merits and prayers of our most glorious father, St. Anthony, that thou wouldst deign to preserve from all ill, fits, plague, epidemic, fever, and mortality this thy servant, in whom in thy name and in honor of our blessed father, St. Anthony, we place in this balance with wheat the weight of his/her body, for the comfort of the poor sick who suffer in this hospital. Deign to give him/her length of days and permit him/her to attain the evening of life; and, by the merits and prayers of the saint we invoke, grant him/her a portion of thy holy and eternal inheritance, guarding and preserving him/her from all enemies. Who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen

 

Louise Bouffier

 

Inspired by the concept of ‘pondus pueri’, various agencies worldwide have founded charities to help the poor. One such charity came about in Toulon, France, when, on 12 March 1890, Louise Bouffier could not turn the key in the lock of her linen shop. The locksmith she summoned tried every key he had and, after an hour, declared defeat. “I must go home and get tools to break down the door as it is impossible to unlock it,” he declared. Distraught, Louise remembered that people often asked Saint Anthony for favors in exchange for alms for the poor, so she prayed, “Saint Anthony, if you let this door open without breaking it down, I will give bread to your poor.” When the locksmith returned, Louise asked him to try once more before breaking the door, and the first key worked. Astounded, Louise related her promise, which she kept, to the locksmith and then to all her friends. Word spread and others began to promise Anthony alms for the poor if he would grant their favors. One friend made a promise of 2 ½ pounds of bread daily for the poor if one of her family members were cured of an affliction that had lasted 23 years. When this petition was quickly granted, the friend bought a small statue of Saint Anthony, which she gratefully placed in a little room at the linen shop. This room became a place of prayer to the saint, and many favors were granted to the petitioners.

 

Centuries-old tradition

 

Following centuries of tradition in asking St. Anthony’s blessing upon children, the Basilica of Saint Anthony invites all worldwide to place their children and those of others, even unknown, under Saint Anthony’s protection. Daily during the 8:15 am Mass, the friars remember with a special intention all the children whose names are recorded in the Blessed Children of Saint Anthony Registry Book. Those submitting names receive certificates for each youngster and a commemorative medal depicting Saint Anthony and the Christ Child.