Why Catholics pray to St. Anthony for lost keys: a kitchen friar, a surprise sermon, and the preacher who became a Doctor of the Church.

Looking for the story behind the St. Anthony prayer for lost things? In this episode of Everyday Saints, we trace the church history behind one of the most beloved lives of the saints: St. Anthony of Padua, born Fernando in Lisbon around 1195, an Augustinian canon in Coimbra who joined the Franciscans after five friars were martyred in Morocco. He got sick on the way there, was blown off course to Sicily, and ended up in a hermitage near Forlì, where the friars knew him for scrubbing pots and pans, until a stalled ordination in 1222 forced someone to preach.

Then we follow him across Northern Italy and southern France: the legend of preaching to the fish at Rimini and what the earliest sources actually say, Pope Gregory IX calling him the Ark of the Testament, the Lent of 1231 when his preaching helped push Padua to end debtors' prison, and his death on June 13, 1231, followed by one of the fastest canonizations in church history. We also cover his 1946 title as Doctor of the Church, the tongue relic at the Basilica of Saint Anthony in Padua, and what scientists found when his tomb was opened in 1981.

Finally, the part you came for: the psalter story behind praying to St. Anthony for lost keys, the hymn by Julian of Speyer, the rhyme "Tony, Tony, look around, something's lost and must be found," and what a saint who was lost three times can say to the rest of us. Plus a Back on the Porch reflection and a closing prayer. We sort out what comes from early sources, what showed up centuries later, and where the sources disagree.

Anthony is the patron saint of lost things, travelers, the poor, and Portugal, and his feast day is June 13. New to the show? The Franciscans come from St. Francis of Assisi (episode 3), and the rule the canons followed comes from St. Augustine (episode 5). Next week: a saint born into a banking fortune who spent nearly all of it on schools.

Everyday Saints tells the true stories of Catholic saints, separating verified church history from centuries of pious legend — one ordinary saint at a time.

New saint episodes every Thursday. Questions or ideas for a future special? Email EverydaySaintsShow@gmail.com or find us on X @EvryDaySaint. More at EverydaySaintsPodcast.com

Australia's first saint was excommunicated by her own bishop. The true story of Mary MacKillop, from a stable school in Penola to sainthood in Rome.

In this episode of Everyday Saints, we trace the church history behind one of the most surprising lives of the saints: Mary MacKillop, the Scottish-Australian teacher who opened a free school for poor children in a stable in Penola, South Australia, founded the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart (the Josephites) with Father Julian Tenison Woods, and was excommunicated by Bishop Laurence Sheil in Adelaide in 1871. We follow the five months she spent cut off from the Church, the Jewish merchant Emanuel Solomon who sheltered her, the bishop who lifted the excommunication on his deathbed, and her journey to Rome to win approval for her order from Pope Pius IX.

Then we look at how she became a saint: the miracle of Veronica Hopson, the beatification by Pope John Paul II in 1995, the recovery of Kathleen Evans, and her canonization by Pope Benedict XVI on October 17, 2010. Along the way, we sort out what the records show, where historians disagree, and what the Sisters of St Joseph and the Archbishop of Adelaide have said since. Plus a Back on the Porch reflection on what it means to start in a stable.

Everyday Saints tells the true stories of Catholic saints, separating verified church history from centuries of pious legend — one ordinary saint at a time.

New saint episodes every Thursday. Questions or ideas for a future special? Email EverydaySaintsShow@gmail.com or find us on X @EvryDaySaint. More at EverydaySaintsPodcast.com

Who was the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus? The Bible gives her a handful of scenes. Here's what we know, and what two thousand years added.

In this episode of Everyday Saints, we walk through every scene of the Virgin Mary's story in the New Testament and sort church history from tradition: the Annunciation in Nazareth, her visit to Elizabeth and the song known as the Magnificat, the two accounts of the birth of Jesus in Matthew and Luke, Simeon's warning, the lost boy in the Temple, the wedding at Cana, the cross, and the upper room in the book of Acts.

Then we look at what came after the Bible: the second-century Gospel of James, the council at Ephesus that gave Mary the title Theotokos, and what the Catholic Church teaches about the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption. And in Truth or Legend: Were Mary's parents really named Joachim and Anne? Was she fourteen when Jesus was born? Did she die in Ephesus? And is she really mentioned more in the Quran than in the New Testament?

Plus a Back on the Porch reflection on what Mary shows us about holding on to something you don't understand yet, and callbacks to Joseph (episode 17) and Peter (episode 1).

Everyday Saints tells the true stories of Catholic saints, separating verified church history from centuries of pious legend — one ordinary saint at a time.

New saint episodes every Thursday. Questions or ideas for a future special? Email EverydaySaintsShow@gmail.com or find me on X @EvryDaySaint. More at EverydaySaintsPodcast.com