Saint Anthony of Padua: A Feast of Faith, Bread, Lilies, and Italian Devotion in San Diego’s Little Italy
By Chris M. Forte
Every June, Catholics around the world celebrate one of the Church’s most beloved saints: Saint Anthony of Padua. His feast day falls on June 13, but in many parishes, especially Italian parishes and communities, the celebration is often moved to the nearest Sunday so more people can participate.
That was the case last Sunday at Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church in San Diego’s Little Italy, where the Feast of Saint Anthony was celebrated during the noon Mass. Since the noon Mass at Our Lady of the Rosary is the parish’s Italian Mass, the festa carried a special cultural and spiritual meaning. It was not only a Catholic devotion. It was also a living expression of Italian faith, memory, and community.
For a parish founded by and for Italian immigrants, the Feast of Saint Anthony is more than a date on the liturgical calendar. It is a reminder of how faith traveled with our ancestors across oceans, how saints became companions in hardship, and how Catholic traditions helped hold immigrant communities together in a new land.
Who Was Saint Anthony of Padua?
Saint Anthony of Padua was born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1195. His baptismal name was Fernando Martins de Bulhões. Though he came from a noble family and received a strong education, he chose religious life at a young age. He first entered the Augustinian Canons, but after being inspired by the martyrdom of Franciscan missionaries, he joined the Order of Friars Minor, the community founded by Saint Francis of Assisi.
Taking the name Anthony, he became known as a brilliant preacher, teacher, theologian, and defender of the faith. He preached with clarity, courage, and deep love for the poor. His knowledge of Scripture was so profound that Pope Gregory IX reportedly called him a “living ark of the Testament,” a man whose mind and heart were filled with the Word of God.
Saint Anthony died near Padua, Italy, on June 13, 1231, at only 35 or 36 years old. He was canonized less than a year later, one of the fastest canonizations in Church history. In 1946, Pope Pius XII declared him a Doctor of the Church, honoring him as one of the great teachers of Catholic doctrine.
Yet for ordinary Catholics, Saint Anthony is not remembered only as a scholar. He is remembered as a saint close to the people.
He is the saint we ask for help when something is lost. He is the saint whose image often shows him holding the Child Jesus, a lily, or a book. He is the saint many families turn to in moments of worry, need, gratitude, and hope.
The familiar prayer says it simply:
“Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony, please come around. Something is lost and must be found.”
That little rhyme may sound simple, but behind it is a serious Catholic instinct: the belief that the saints are alive in Christ, that they pray for us, and that God’s grace reaches into the ordinary details of human life.
The Customs of Saint Anthony’s Feast
The Feast of Saint Anthony has many customs, especially in Italian, Portuguese, Brazilian, and other Catholic cultures. These traditions vary by region, but several are especially common.
One of the best-known customs is Saint Anthony’s Bread. The tradition is connected to stories of miracles and charity, especially the idea of giving bread or alms to the poor in thanksgiving for favors received through Saint Anthony’s intercession. In many churches, loaves of bread are blessed and distributed on or near his feast day.
This custom reflects something central to Saint Anthony’s life. He was not only a preacher of beautiful sermons. He was a preacher of charity. His devotion was not separated from the poor, the hungry, the suffering, or those who had been forgotten.
Another custom is the blessing or use of lilies, a symbol often associated with Saint Anthony. The lily represents purity, holiness, and the beauty of a life given to God. Many statues and holy cards show Saint Anthony holding a lily along with the Child Jesus.
There are also novenas and special prayers to Saint Anthony. In some places, Catholics pray a thirteen-day devotion leading up to his feast, while others observe the “Thirteen Tuesdays” in his honor. Tuesday became associated with Saint Anthony because of early traditions surrounding miracles at his tomb.
In Italian communities, the feast often became a full festa: Mass, prayers, processions, music, food, family gatherings, and a public expression of faith. These celebrations were not merely ethnic festivals. They were acts of Catholic memory. They brought together the altar, the street, the family table, and the neighborhood.
That is why saints’ feasts mattered so much to Italian immigrants in America. They were a way of saying: We are in a new country, but we have not forgotten who we are. We have not forgotten our faith. We have not forgotten the saints who walked with our parents and grandparents.
Saint Anthony and Italian Catholic Identity
Although Saint Anthony was born in Portugal, he is deeply loved in Italy, especially because of his life, ministry, death, and burial in Padua. To many Italians and Italian Americans, he is simply “Sant’Antonio.”
For generations of Italian families, devotion to Saint Anthony was part of everyday Catholic life. His statue might be found in a parish church, on a family prayer table, or in a grandmother’s home. His name was invoked for lost keys, lost documents, lost opportunities, lost loved ones, and sometimes even lost faith.
This is one of the beautiful things about Catholicism. The Church is universal, but devotion is often local, personal, and familial. A saint born in Portugal becomes beloved in Italy. Italian immigrants bring that devotion to America. Their children and grandchildren continue it in places like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego.
In that sense, Saint Anthony belongs to the whole Church, but he also belongs to the story of Italian America.
His feast reminds us that Italian Catholic identity was never only about food, language, music, or ancestry. Those things matter, but at the heart of the old Italian neighborhoods was the Church. The parish was where people were baptized, married, mourned, educated, organized, and remembered. The saints gave the calendar its rhythm. The festas gave the community its soul.
The Feast at Our Lady of the Rosary in San Diego
Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church has long been the spiritual heart of San Diego’s Little Italy. Founded to serve the Italian Catholic community, the parish remains one of the most visible signs of Italian faith in Southern California.
Last Sunday, the parish celebrated the Feast of Saint Anthony during the noon Italian Mass. That detail matters.
In many places, ethnic Catholic traditions have faded or become purely cultural. But at Our Lady of the Rosary, the Italian language still has a place in the life of the parish. The Mass itself becomes a bridge between generations: between the immigrants who built the parish, the children and grandchildren who inherited it, and the newer parishioners and visitors who come to experience its beauty.
To celebrate Saint Anthony at the Italian Mass is to remember that this devotion came to San Diego through real families, real immigrants, real fishermen, real workers, real mothers and fathers, and real Catholics who wanted a church where their language, culture, and faith could live together.
The festa during Mass also keeps the focus where it belongs: on God. Saint Anthony is honored not as an isolated figure, but as a witness to Christ. The Mass is the center. The Eucharist is the center. The saint points beyond himself to Jesus.
That is the Catholic meaning of a feast day. We honor the saint because the saint reveals what God’s grace can do in a human life.
A Tradition Celebrated Every Year
Every year, the Feast of Saint Anthony at Our Lady of the Rosary continues this old pattern of Catholic life. It brings together devotion and heritage, prayer and memory, the Italian language and the universal Church.
For San Diego’s Little Italy, this annual celebration is one of those traditions that quietly preserves the neighborhood’s deeper identity. Little Italy today is known for restaurants, piazzas, apartments, nightlife, tourists, and the famous neighborhood sign. All of that is part of the modern community. But beneath the visible neighborhood is a much older story.
Before Little Italy was a dining destination, it was a working immigrant neighborhood. Before it was a brand, it was a community. Before the patios, wine bars, and condo towers, there were families, fishing boats, processions, parish societies, novenas, baptisms, funerals, and Sunday Mass.
Our Lady of the Rosary keeps that memory alive.
The Feast of Saint Anthony is part of that living memory. It reminds us that Italian American culture is not only something we inherit through blood. It is something we practice. It is something we show up for. It is something we teach, pray, sing, cook, bless, and hand on.
Why Saint Anthony Still Matters
Saint Anthony remains popular because his intercession feels close to ordinary life. People lose things. People lose direction. People lose hope. People lose faith. People lose loved ones. People lose their sense of belonging.
Saint Anthony’s life answers those losses with the Gospel. He tells us that what is truly lost can be found in Christ. He reminds us that faith is not an abstract idea, but a lived relationship with God. He shows us that preaching, charity, humility, and devotion belong together.
For Italian Americans, especially Catholics, his feast is also a reminder that our heritage is not dead. It does not have to be reduced to nostalgia. It can still be lived in the present.
When the Feast of Saint Anthony is celebrated at Our Lady of the Rosary, in Italian, during Mass, in the heart of San Diego’s Little Italy, something beautiful happens. The past and present meet. The old immigrant parish speaks again. The saints are honored. The Eucharist is celebrated. The community remembers who it is.
And Saint Anthony, the humble friar of Padua, continues to do what he has done for centuries: point lost souls back to Christ.
Sant’Antonio di Padova, prega per noi.
Saint Anthony of Padua, pray for us.
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