Popular effervescences of the Spirit

Fr. Livio Tonello, director

You never get tired of wondering at the great devotion to Saint Anthony. A veneration that knows no crisis. It’s visible in the great feast of 13 June as well as in the daily pilgrimages or in the images present in every church in the world. We call it popular devotion, but it has nothing minimal. In the expressions of feelings of affection we recognize a noble form of faith. It’s what Pope Francis in his exhortation Evangelii gaudium of 2013 defines as “a true expression of the spontaneous missionary activity of the people of God… an ongoing and developing process, of which the Holy Spirit is the principal agent (no. 122). It manifests a thirst for God which only the poor and the simple can know… and enables us to see how the faith, once received, becomes embodied in a culture and is constantly passed on. (no. 123). Expressions of popular piety have much to teach us; for those who are capable of reading them, they are a locus theologicus (no. 126)”. Unequivocal affirmations that we can also attribute to the deep attachment to the Saint of Padua. Sometimes there is a request (a grace, a miracle), in others…