One of my favorite saints is Saint Anthony of Padua. St. Anthony. He’s a very popular saint in our Catholic tradition. Many thinks that he was born and raised in Italy. He was not. He was Portuguese, a Franciscan. And there is a great devotion to St. Anthony when we lose something. We lose something and we turn to St. Anthony and there’s all sorts of little sayings about it.

One of my favorite is: ‘Tony, Tony look around what was lost must now be found.’

[laughter]

And it’s amazing! You talk to folks and it seems to work. That you lose something, you pray to St. Anthony, and next thing you know you find it.

But it’s interesting where that whole understanding of St. Anthony and why we pray to him when we lose something. It has nothing to do with losing a physical object. St. Anthony is a saint because he discovered something by losing himself in God.

Another way of saying that; by dying to himself, by dying to his ego, by dying to those passions that are distractions in life. And by focusing in the love of God, deepening that relationship he died to himself and his desires and only wanted to do the desires that God wants him to do and for all of us to do.

To lose ourselves in the Lord, so that we might find ways to give to others. The whole journey of the Christian; you and I- is not for ourselves, it’s not self-focused it really is other focused. What gifts and talents that have been given to you by God are gifts and talents that are to be shared with others.

Look to the cross. See how it is that Jesus gave his life for us. He gave literally everything for us so that we might experience new life in God.