Extra Miles Yes; but No Compromise
Celebrating St. Anthony - 13th June, 2016
1 Kgs 21: 1-16; Mt 5: 38-42
Ahab seems a strange man! One would get confused whether is a virtuous man or a villainous man when they see his profile as it appears in the book of Kings. He never seems to be doing evil, but remains still the cause and the source of a series of evil acts. He seems to have some kind of a fear of God but it finally amounts to a pseudo reverence to God, as he approves of the evil done by others and draws heavily from those.
We have another man to think about today, infact to celebrate! St. Anthony of Padua, a man who was ready to go any extra mile...he was ready make all sacrifices for the sake of the Word, but never ready even for a slightest compromise. There is an interesting episode of St. Anthony here in Chennai, India.
The statue of Anthony at George Town, Broadway, sports a beard unusual of the typical image of St. Anthony. So there goes around a legend that it was not Anthony at all, and that it was some other saint (probably St. Cajetan) that is placed there and people have mistakenly identified it as St. Anthony and that now there is no possibility of reverting things and so on. The episode I referred to is about a discussion we had at table with a veteran who has been in this Shrine for a while: He just asked a question - the so-called statue has child Jesus in its arms - has anyone seen the image of Cajetan with child Jesus? - has anyone seen any saint other than Joseph and Anthony, who have child Jesus in their hand, ofcourse not to mention our blessed mother?
That set me thinking...St. Anthony has a singular grace of holding the Child Jesus in his arms...that was because he was worthy of it, a man of no compromise but full of compassion and passion for God and passion for God's people!