Losing One's Life

Homily for the Feast of St. Anthony

St. Anthony of Padua is invoked most frequently when we lose something and cannot seem to find it. I thought it would be a good idea to look at the verb, “to lose.” Using it in our common ordinary and daily conversations can be difficult for people whose first language is not English. For instance, if I were to say that I lost my copy of the Scriptures, it would not have the same meaning as if I were to say, “I lost my heart in San Francisco.” To lose one’s temper is entirely different than losing my glasses or my keys.

The mystery of Christ’s suffering and dying and rising again, which we celebrate every time we are at this altar, urges on us a willingness to lose ourselves in order to find our true life.

In the passage from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians which we proclaim today, we are exhorted to profess the truth in love and grow to the full maturity of Christ the head. If we are going to fulfill this exhortation, it will be necessary to set aside or lose our own personal ambitions. In the Gospel passage that we read today, St. Mark concludes his Gospel with these words: “The Lord continued to work with them throughout and confirm the message through the signs which accompanied them.” Jesus calls  them to be evangelists, putting proclamation of the Gospel above all other values.

St. Anthony has been called “The Evangelical Man.” While he may be invoked as the finder of lost articles, it is his preaching that really defined who he was as a Friar Minor. In order to become the Evangelical man, St. Anthony had to lose his desire to be a missionary, following in the footsteps of the first martyrs of the Franciscan Order. He had to “die to self” and open his heart to the mission that Jesus gave us all at the end of his life. Again, I would refer back to our reading from the Letter to the Ephesians which enumerates the various roles of service for the faithful to build up the body of Christ. He names apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. However, we should not think that these five roles exhaust the list of ways that we can bring the Gospel to the world. Every one of us is called to build up the body of Christ. Whether we are a parent, a friend, counselor, or a nurse, or in any other profession, all of us are called to be evangelical men and women. This is the true vocation of each and every one of us.

As we remember what Jesus has done for us in this Eucharist, may we continue to lose our lives for the sake of the Gospel.