I have MANY St. Anthony stories. I was taught to pray to him for lost articles by a nun in grade school, and with the same childlike trust I pray to him whenever something is lost. I always find the lost item and sometimes it is beyond belief. The following is one of the most amazing instances.
This happened in about 1994 or 1995. I was working for a company in Chicago as an Human Resources clerk. Our group was managing a severance program for some longtime employees. A few of the employees received special terms because of their unique skills and value to the company. They had been though extensive negotiations before an agreement was signed. The other woman I worked with was responsible for their files and all the paperwork involved. It was highly sensitive and confidential information.
Shortly before two of these special employees were set to leave the company, our boss called my co-worker and requested their files with the signed contracts and all the paperwork involved in their termination. But my co-worker could not find the files! In a small panic, she came to me to ask if I had seen the files anywhere, and even if I knew where she may have put them. We looked through every drawer in our office, and even behind file cabinets and desks, crawling on our hands and knees at times. She was in real trouble. These files were critical to the smooth transition of these employees, and if they were lost who knew what difficulties would be involved. She feared she would be fired for losing them. But they were nowhere to be found. So I prayed to St. Anthony, and had her pray to St. Anthony. The boss called again, asking where the files were, and would she bring them to his office right now. She said okay, and looked at me with a desperate look, as if to say, "what can I do now?" Suddenly I remembered, we had moved offices about two months before. Could she possibly have left them in our old office? If she did, had anyone else found them? Were new people moved into our old space? If so, she would be in real trouble because all of the information in the files was highly confidential. We went two floors down to the place of our old offices, and entered her old cubicle. No one had moved into the space. She opened the file drawer next to her old desk, and much to our utter amazement, there were the files, intact, She looked at me with her jaw dropped open as I said out loud, "Thank you St. Anthony!!!" We jumped up and down with each other in joy, and she scooped up the files to take to our boss. He never knew they had been missing, and my coworker began to believe in the power of St. Anthony. He is a wonder worker indeed!
Thank you B.B. for this wonderful story. Have your own testimony to share about St. Anthony and answered prayer? Email us to have it posted on our blog~
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.
