My son and his family was moving home to Beaumont. I rode with him back to Houston, Texas last Sunday to pick up a few things from his house. The main thing he needed was his social security card for his new job.
When we got to the house, he went to the place he thought the card was and it wasn't there. He told me to check in a file cabinet in one of the bedrooms while he looked somewhere else. Neither of us could find the card. We went on to load up other things from his list and, from time to time, we'd look for the card.
After packing and shuffling around for a half hour or so, I decided it was time to get Saint Anthony involved. I said, "St. Anthony, something is lost and must be found." Right after I said the prayer to St. Anthony, my son said, "Check that file cabinet again." This time when I checked the cabinet, although I still didn't find the card, I pulled four folders that I thought he might need later, even though they weren't on his list of things to bring home. He said, "I don't really have a place to keep those." I said, "I'll keep them at my house. It might save you a trip to Houston later. You never know." Eventually, we gave up on finding the card. On the drive back home, I again mentioned the file folders I had insisted on bringing home. I told him, "You know, you just never know when you might have an emergency need for your marriage license or that other stuff I grabbed. "
Those file folders kept nipping at my brain. I didn't think the social security card was in them, but I was certain he'd need something else in those folders before his next trip back to the house in Houston. When I got home that evening, I unloaded all the things I brought back from the house in Houston to keep at my house. I put the folders upstairs and didn't give them much thought. Later that evening, I went up to my office to check my e-mail and saw the folders. Instead of putting them in the file drawer in my desk, I decided to look through them first. The first folder I opened, the "Wedding Stuff" folder, had an envelope in it. Inside the envelope? The social security card. St. Anthony rocks.
He is one of the great saints of the Catholic Church, and one of the beloved--even far beyond Catholics themselves. Untold numbers of people turn to him, still, when there is loss. And strangely--at least strangely in the usual ways of the world--those things often quickly turn up. And often they turn up in the most unexpected--even seemingly miraculous ways. Let the stories begin.
