If you have ever been told to "pray to St. Anthony" when you cannot find your keys, you have brushed against one of the most beloved saints in the Catholic Church. The lost-things association is real — but it is the smallest part of a life that produced one of the great preachers of the Middle Ages, a Doctor of the Church, and a patron whose feast day (June 13) is a public holiday in two capitals on two continents.
This is the actual person behind the holy card.
Feast Day
Saturday, 13 June 2026.
The feast falls on a Saturday this year — which in many countries means parish processions and outdoor liturgies after morning Mass.
A Lisbon Boy Who Died in Padua
He was born Fernando Martins de Bulhões in Lisbon, Portugal, around 1195, into a wealthy family. As a teenager he joined the Augustinian Canons, studied theology and the Church Fathers for nearly a decade, and was on the path to a respectable career as a scholar-priest.
Then in 1220, the bodies of five Franciscan friars who had been martyred in Morocco passed through Coimbra on the way back to be buried. He saw them, and something in him broke open. Within months he had left the Augustinians, joined the Franciscan friars, taken the name Anthony, and set sail for Morocco himself — intending martyrdom.
Bad weather and illness drove his ship instead to Sicily. From there he made his way north to a Franciscan chapter meeting at Assisi, where St. Francis himself was still alive. He spent the next eleven years in northern Italy — preaching across Italy and southern France against heresy, drawing crowds in tens of thousands, founding a school of Franciscan theology at Bologna.
He died in Padua, on 13 June 1231, exhausted, at thirty-five. Canonized eleven months later — one of the fastest canonizations in Church history.
Doctor of the Church
In 1946, Pope Pius XII formally named him a Doctor of the Church — Doctor Evangelicus, the Evangelical Doctor — recognising his theological writings, especially his sermons on the liturgical year. He is one of only thirty-seven Doctors in the entire Church.
The point is worth dwelling on: the saint most people associate with lost car keys is one of the most learned theologians the Franciscan order ever produced. The folk piety and the scholarly stature exist in the same person.
How the "Lost Things" Tradition Started
The famous association traces to one episode in his lifetime. A young friar had taken Anthony's psalter — a precious, hand-copied book — and run away with it. Anthony prayed. The friar had a frightening vision, came back, returned the book, and confessed.
That single incident, multiplied across eight centuries of European Catholic piety, has become the basis for the lost-objects devotion. The Latin couplet Si quaeris miracula ("If you seek miracles") explicitly names what Anthony intercedes for: death, error, calamity, the devil, leprosy — sea and chains and limbs broken — the lost are sought and found.
The popular childhood rhyme — "Tony, Tony, look around, something's lost and can't be found" — is American, but its sentiment is older than any nation that speaks English.
The Famous Prayer
The traditional short prayer to St. Anthony for lost things:
Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony, please come around. Something is lost and cannot be found.
A more formal version:
Dear Saint Anthony, please come around. Something is lost and must be found. Saint Anthony, perfect imitator of Jesus, who received from God the special power of restoring lost things, grant that I may find what has been lost. At least restore to me peace and tranquillity of mind, the loss of which has afflicted me even more than my material loss. Amen.
The prayer is not magic. But there is a particular spiritual logic to it: when you cannot find your phone, you have lost a small thing; when you cannot find your peace, you have lost a much larger one. St. Anthony is petitioned for both.
The Novena
A novena is nine days of prayer for a specific intention. The traditional Novena to Saint Anthony is prayed on the thirteen Tuesdays leading up to his feast — a longer practice known as the Tredici Martedì in Italy, going back to the Middle Ages. Tuesday was the day Anthony was buried in 1231, which is why the devotion landed there.
The shorter nine-day novena is prayed any time — often beginning June 4 to end on the eve of the feast. Each day involves a Scripture reading, a short reflection, a petition, and the Si quaeris miracula responsory. The texts are in most Catholic prayer books and widely available online.
What He Is Patron Of
Officially or by long tradition, St. Anthony of Padua is patron of:
- Lost things and lost persons (his most famous patronage)
- The poor — through "St. Anthony's Bread," a centuries-old charity that gives alms to the poor in thanksgiving for prayers answered
- Lisbon (his birthplace) and Padua (his death and shrine)
- Portugal (alongside St. George)
- Brazil — by long colonial-era devotion; in many parishes he is "Santo Antônio"
- Pregnant women, travelers, fishermen, the elderly, miners
- The Franciscan order — alongside St. Francis
How the Feast Is Celebrated Around the World
In Lisbon, June 13 is the Feast of the City — a public holiday with parades, marchas populares (street dances), grilled sardines, basil plants exchanged as gifts, and the famous Casamentos de Santo António (Saint Anthony's Weddings): each year the city sponsors a group wedding ceremony on June 12–13, often for couples of limited means. Saint Anthony is casamenteiro — the matchmaker saint — in Portuguese tradition.
In Padua, the Basilica of Saint Anthony ("Il Santo") draws millions of pilgrims annually. On June 13, his tongue and vocal cords — found uncorrupted when his tomb was opened by St. Bonaventure in 1263 — are processed through the city in a reliquary. The basilica's tradition: pilgrims touch the tomb of the saint and write petitions, leaving them in the church.
In Brazil, June marks the Festas Juninas — the cycle of feasts of St. Anthony (13), St. John the Baptist (24), and St. Peter (29). Bonfires, quadrilhas (square dances), and forró music animate cities and small towns alike. Saint Anthony is the marriage saint in Brazilian popular religion — single women traditionally pray to him for a husband, sometimes with a statue placed upside down until he delivers.
In Italy, the Tredici Martedì devotion (Thirteen Tuesdays) reaches every region. The Basilica in Padua keeps the lights on twenty-four hours a day around the saint's tomb during the octave of the feast.
In Spain and Latin America, the saint is widely venerated as San Antonio de Padua. The novena tradition is strong, especially the Trece Martes.
In Poland, Św. Antoni Padewski is honored with parish processions, the blessing of lilies (Anthony's iconic flower, symbol of purity), and votive Masses for the dead and for the recovery of lost things.
In Germany and Austria, devotion to Heiliger Antonius von Padua continues through the Antoniusbrot (St. Anthony's Bread) charity tradition and the Dienstagsandacht (Tuesday devotion) in many parishes.
The saint is the same. The flavor is local.
Reading Him
His sermons survive — in Latin, mostly, in collections called the Sermones Dominicales et Festivi. Even a few lines reveal a preacher with one foot in patristic scholarship and the other in pastoral urgency. A representative passage:
Lost is the soul who has lost its God; lost are the eyes that no longer see Him; lost is the heart that no longer beats for Him. Whom Anthony will help find — for he himself once was lost, and was found, and shall be found in heaven.
Saint Anthony Library editions in English are available; the Sermones are also being translated language by language as part of the Franciscan academic recovery project.
How to Mark the Feast
A simple shape for Saturday, June 13, 2026:
Morning. Read the prayer for lost things above. Bring one specific thing you have lost — material or otherwise — to St. Anthony's intercession.
At Mass. Many parishes have a votive Mass for St. Anthony; if not, the lectionary readings of the day still apply, but extra collects for the saint may be used.
During the day. Read Luke 10:1–9 or John 12:24–26 — Scripture often used in his memorial Mass.
Almsgiving. Drop something in the Saint Anthony's Bread box at your parish, or give a small amount to a local charity. This is the most ancient way to honor him.
Bless lilies, if your parish offers. Many parishes bless lilies on his feast and let parishioners take them home.
Before bed. Pray the prayer above one more time, this time for whatever your heart has lost track of: peace, hope, a relationship, a faith you can feel.
A Final Word
If a saint who has been dead nearly eight hundred years can still help you find your phone, it is because the very small things — the keys, the umbrella, the notebook — are not really the issue. The deeper issue is the heart that knows it has been losing track of something for years, and would like to be found.
Saint Anthony, perfect imitator of Jesus, was himself a man who lost his old life completely — Lisbon, name, plans, country, comfort, the path he had been walking — and was found by Christ on a Sicilian shore, on the way to a martyrdom he never reached.
That is the saint behind the lost car keys.
Saint Anthony, pray for us.
If your own heart is feeling lost this season, the bible verses for hope and bible verses for anxiety collections sit close at hand. For a single verse handed to you each morning, Haven's daily verse refreshes daily.