Yes, I lost the patron of lost articles.
Two friends and myself ventured on a weekend trip from our base in Austria down to see Venice. We decided that since Padua was so close by we should stop there too. We arrived by train into Padua and looked at the pages I had copied about where to go to get to the Basilica of St. Anthony. We read that there were two buses that we could take to get to the shrine. So we hopped on the bus and hoped we were headed in the right direction. We got off where the bus stopped on a circle and proceeded to look around. Unfortunately we were not able to locate any signs pointing us in the right direction. So we hopped back on the bus and kept going because...clearly we had got off too soon:)
This bus kept going and going and going. We ended up in the residential section of town and the bus just stopped. We communicated haltingly, but made out that we had gone too far, the bus had to wait for 20 minutes before heading into town, and the driver would let us know when to get off.
Keeping our eye on the clock, we knew we had precious little time before we had to catch the last train into Venice. The bus headed back in and dropped us off (right where we were before) and the driver pointed down the dark alley that we had to walk. So off we went hustling through the streets in search of St. Anthony. We prayed that he would intercede for us and lead us to his relics. We made it there, rushed inside, and found where his relics are kept. We had just over 5 minutes before we had to run to catch the next bus to get us to the train.
The girls and I were frustrated with our adventure since we had so little time, but laughed quite a bit over how we "lost" St. Anthony.
St. Anthony of Padua is a special saint to me as his Feast Day today is my mother's birthday. He has also helped numerous times keep me on track with my directions and assist in finding things I have lost. I have told him on many occasions that a child of mine would bear his name in honor and recognition of all his intercessory prayers:)
1 comment:
Heya!
I know *just* what you are referring to!! I have been on that very bus to St. Anthony's Basillica almost every year of my entire life! It IS very odd that it doesn't actually stop near the shrine, but you have to walk around the corner and quite a distance to get there! You'd think, being such a big touist attraction, they'd have a more direct bus!!
But I'm glad you got there in the end!
St. Anthony is reallly special to me too!
and happy (beleated!) birthday to your mom!
lotsa love
xxxxxxx
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