
Saint Anthony's Oil

by Tiesa Wesen
Title
Saint Anthony's Oil
Artist
Tiesa Wesen
Medium
Photograph - Digital Photography
Description
During the month of June, we celebrate Saint Anthony's Feast Day on the 13th day and we enjoy one of Heaven's most beautiful, fragrant and Holy flowers: The Lily! A symbol of purity, celebrative in so many colors, it is ever virtuous in its initial presence during the year as it announces the Resurrection for us during Easter, On June 13 of the year 1680 at the church of Mentosca d'Agesco in Austria, a single cut bloom of a lily was placed in the hand of Saint Anthony's statue. For an entire year, in its holy placement, the lily remained fully alive without wilting, imitative of The Word Of GOD that Saint Anthony so passionately and devoutly kept alive and filled souls with. In the following year, much like The Blessed Word which reaches out to love more hearts, the lily produced two more blooms and filled the church with their inspiring fragrance. A little over a century later, during the anti-clerical, anti-Catholic French Revolution, on the island of Corsica, the Franciscans were forced to depart, leaving the devoted alone with their parish and their petitions. On June 13th, erecting a shrine to the Saint in their church and placing lilies in his honor within it, again the lilies remained in bloom and fragrant for many months. Permission to bless lilies in honor of the Saint was given by Pope Leo XIII, leading to many favors granted by this devotion through the touch of the lilies' petals, and to the church's definition of them as sacramentals, even when dried and faded, much like the palms given to the faithful on Palm Sunday. The extract from pressing the blessed blooms, blessed by a cleric for shrines dedicated to Saint Anthony, are known as the HolySaint Anthony's Oil. It is, of course, why in images of Saint Anthony, he is seen holding The Precious Baby Jesus of our Easter Celebration, a book, which this loving Saint was reading when The Baby appeared to him and, of course, a magnificent and miraculous lily!
Uploaded
September 28th, 2021
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