By Fr. Jack Wintz, O.F.M.
The child Jesus is a good symbol of what we are celebrating this year—the 2,000th anniversary of the Incarnation and birth of Jesus. It’s the perfect year to explore why the image is so closely associated with St. Anthony of Padua.
Next to Mary of Nazareth, the saint most often seen in artwork holding the child Jesus in his arms is St. Anthony of Padua. If there is anything I’ve learned from visiting churches and Catholic missions throughout the world, it is that the image of Anthony and the child Jesus is a favorite around the globe. It can be found wherever Catholic missionaries have carried the Good News, even in the most remote regions of the world.
Since I grew up in a Franciscan parish (in southern Indiana) and was then educated in the Franciscan seminary system, I was very familiar with that image. How could I avoid it? And yet for most of my life, I seldom asked others or myself: Why is St. Anthony presented that way?
For a good part of my life, I did not look for a deeper meaning in this familiar image. Nor did I ask why the image caught the popular fancy of almost every culture around the world.
Looking for the Deeper Meanings
Exploring this image is something like exploring a vivid dream we’ve had during the night. We wake up the next morning and wonder, Now what was that all about? We assume that this dream, emerging from our inner depths, may hold an important meaning for our lives. So, too, the images that rise from the inner life of the Church may well hold profound meanings for us.
It is interesting to note that, although Anthony has been frequently portrayed in art since his death in 1231, images of him with the Christ child did not become popular until the 17th century.
Before exploring the image of Anthony and the Christ child, however, we should look at one of the popular stories explaining the origin of the custom.
According to one version of the legend and there are many there was a Count Tiso who had a castle about 11 miles from Padua, Italy. On the grounds of the castle the count had provided a chapel and a hermitage for the friars.
Anthony often went there toward the end of his life and spent time praying in one of the hermit cells. One night, his little cell suddenly filled up with light. Jesus appeared to Anthony in the form of a tiny child. Passing by the hermitage, the count saw the light shining from the room and St. Anthony holding and communicating with the infant.
The count fell to his knees upon seeing this wondrous sight. And when the vision ended, Anthony saw the count kneeling at the open door. Anthony begged Count Tiso not to reveal what he had seen until after his death.
Whether this story be legend or fact, the image of Anthony with the child Jesus has important truths to teach us.
An Eloquent Preacher Holding Up the Word
Another meaningful way to interpret the presence of the Christ child in the arms of St. Anthony is to realize that Anthony was a great preacher of the gospel—a brilliant communicator of the Incarnate Word. In his sermons, Anthony emphasized the mystery of the Incarnation.
In 1946, Pope Pius XII officially declared Anthony a Doctor of the Universal Church, with the designation “Doctor of the Gospel.” Clearly, Anthony had taught Scripture with great power and effectiveness.
This leads us to view the images of Anthony holding the infant in a whole new light: Through his Scripture-based preaching, the real, historical Anthony was holding and communicating to the world the Incarnate Word of God. Very often the infant in Anthony’s arms is portrayed as standing on the holy Bible. Can there be a more obvious symbol and clue that the Christ child in Anthony’s arms represents the very embodiment of the Word of God? Often, the child stands on the Bible’s open pages as if rising out of the printed word itself.
We, Too, Can Carry Christ
The image of Anthony holding the divine infant is a symbol and model for each of us. The image inspires us to go through life clinging to the wonderful mystery of the humble, self-emptying Christ, who accompanies us as a servant of our humanity and of the world’s healing.
This is the image of Christ that St. Paul sketches for us in his Letter to the Philippians. Paul urges that we take on the attitude of Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death even death on a cross (2:6-8).
This passage from Philippians is a key building block of Franciscan spirituality. And if the infant in Anthony’s arms were to speak, Philippians 2:6-8 would be his first message and self-description.
Just as Jesus’ death on a cross reveals God’s total self-giving love for us, so also does his Incarnation (symbolized in the Christ child). The eminent Scripture scholar, the late Father Raymond Brown, has affirmed that the divine self-giving revealed in Jesus’ Incarnation is comparable to God’s supreme act of love...embodied in Jesus’ self-giving on the cross. Brown adds, Indeed some theologians have so appreciated the intensity of love in the Incarnation that they have wondered whether that alone might not have saved the world even if Jesus was never crucified.
This is the kind of love that radiates from the Christ child so often pictured in St. Anthony’s arms. Would it not be a good idea for all of us to go through life carrying an imaginary God-child in our arms and holding him up to the world? The child, however, is not really imaginary or fictitious. Two thousand years ago, thanks to the Virgin Mary’s Yes, the Son of God left behind his divine condition and came to dwell among us as a human child. Our faith tells us that he does accompany us each day like a humble servant like a vulnerable child.
Like St. Anthony, we do well lovingly to carry this image with us on our life journey.
Fr. Jack Wintz, O.F.M., is the author of Lights: Revelations of God’s Goodness, an inspirational book exploring the spirit of St. Francis in the context of the author’s life journey.