“Mum, I can’t find my water bottle.” I try not to roll my eyes and huff under my breath on our way out the door to school, as my eight-year-old informs me of the latest addition to the never-ending conveyor belt of lost things.
Like most parents, I am driven demented by a daily list of lost items. From sharpeners to coats, and that one resolute jumper that may as well be in the Bermuda Triangle for all the time it spends being lost, my children are never not misplacing something.
I weigh up whether sending the text to the class WhatsApp group is worth the 30 or so similar replies all saying something along the lines of, “Nope, not here hun” or “Will keep an eye out”. Instead, after tearing the house apart, retracing our steps, and considering adding my sanity to the list of lost things, I decide to ask St Anthony for a dig-out.
I’m not very religious. I can remember as a small child asking my dear old nan who that man was in the picture at the top of her stairs. She looked horrified that I hadn’t recognised her adored Pope John Paul II, whose image, along with the sacred heart of Jesus, seemed to hang on every Irish wall in the 1980s. Gaffes like that aside, I do consider myself to be a spiritual person, although I don’t really darken the door of Mass very often any more. I do the big days – christenings, Communions, weddings, funerals and Christmas, but attendance outside those is sporadic at best.
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St Anthony is a different kettle of fish, however. For the uninitiated, St Anthony of Padua is chiefly known as the patron saint of lost things. He has always been the go-to figure in our family when something is lost. Growing up, my mum would always trot out the line, “We’ll have to ask St Anthony to find it,” whenever something went missing. And you know what? He usually delivered. There were a few caveats to his powers, of course, or so my mum would tell me. If the item had been thrown out, there was nothing he could do, and you always had to put a few bob in a charity box when he came up trumps.
I never really questioned any of this or thought beyond him as an imaginary figure you asked to help you find things, from lost teddies to more important items like wallets and passports. To be honest, he probably existed in the same category as the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus for all I knew about his saintly endeavours.
I know that will trigger some people’s ire. What I did take away from turning to the patron saint of lost things and still do, is that the act of paying it forward, good karma, and feeling like you’re in divine alignment or maybe even the recipient of a real miracle, is always a positive source of comfort, whether you’re a Mass-goer or not.
In the same way I get solace in my belief in a higher power, having a belief in something greater than ourselves, guiding us and looking out for us, is a reassuring feeling we all need in our lives.
Like a lot of “lapsed Catholics”, though, I’m still trying to work out how I feel about the church. It’s complicated, and while I may not kneel down and pray at Mass every Sunday, I still have these enduring religious quirks that pepper my daily life. It could be asking St Anthony to find something or saying “God bless” to my children every night before bed. It could be the urge not to eat meat on Good Friday or blessing myself when a funeral passes. It could even be shouting “Jesus” when the chips are down.
[ Idea that Irish schoolchildren can simply ‘opt out’ of religion class is a mythOpens in new window ]
Some might just write these things off as ingrained echoes of a Catholic upbringing, so entrenched I can’t unlearn them. Maybe that’s true, but for whatever reason, I also can’t help finding them comforting.
A few of these little quirks have, by osmosis, made their way into my boys’ lives, too. Whenever St Anthony finds something, they always want to put some money in a charity box afterwards. Whenever we are on holiday and pass by an old church, they always want to go in and light a candle. Part of that is probably the novelty of lighting the candle, but the intention to light it for someone they love is clearly there.
That’s not to say they aren’t fairly sketchy on a lot of the nuts and bolts of other Catholic details. For some reason I was explaining what each bead on the Rosary represented while we were in the car the other day. My eldest misheard me and genuinely thought Hail Mary’s were called “Hey Benny’s”. He didn’t think twice that this could be a mistake at all. And in a little bit of history repeating itself, neither child seemed to know who the pope was, even when Leo was all over the TV after his election recently.
“Here, Mum, will you take this?” casually asks my eight-year-old back in the present, as he zooms past me, barely pausing on his way out of school to run around with his pals.
Lo and behold, St Anto has delivered once again. It’s my son’s missing water bottle, and suddenly, I feel that wave of comfort wash over me.
