Pastor of The Franciscan Church at St. Bonaventure, Friar Daid Stachurski, OFM Conv. (standing in back) welcomed the friars of the Basilica of St. Anthony of Pada (Italy) and their traveling Relic of St. Anthony to the parish for the Feast Day weekend.
On the weekend of the Feast of St. Anthony (June 11-13th), the Conventual Franciscans who serve at the Pontificia Basilica di sant’Antonio di Padova (Basilica of St. Anthony of Padua – Italy) traveling with the St. Anthony Relic to Canada this June, stopped first at our own pastoral ministry of The Franciscan Church at St. Bonaventure, in Toronto, Ontario. The weekend included the opportunity for Veneration each day, as well as Masses and prayers devoted to St. Anthony of Padua.
Traveling Reliquary from Padua, Italy
Our own Reliquary, located at our ministry of The Shrine of St. Anthony (Ellicott City, MD) was gifted to us by our Paduan confreres. As you can see, it was created by the same artisan and looks very similar to the Traveling Reliquary from Padua. As it is stationary, it does have the addition of the flames behind the bust of St. Anthony of Padua. Located in the narthex of the Shrine’s Chapel, this gold-leafed bust depicts the Portuguese Franciscan whom the whole world would come to know as the “miracle-worker” and “finder of lost things.” In the middle of the flame is a precious first-class relic of the saint – a small piece of petrified flesh removed from his sarcophagus in Padua, Italy, in 1995. The friars in Padua sent the relic to the friars of Ellicott City in 1998. (It is a reminder to us all that) the human body is a “temple” of the Holy Spirit.
