The Thirteen Tuesdays

For things lost — and for the people who feel lost.

St. Anthony of Padua is invoked for lost objects, but the tradition runs deeper: he is the finder of lost things of every kind, including lost faith and lost people. The novena runs nine days; the related devotion of the Thirteen Tuesdays leads up to his feast on 13 June.

Prayer for Each Day

O wonderful St. Anthony,
glorious on account of the fame of your miracles,
and through the condescension of Jesus
in coming in the form of a little child
to rest in your arms:

obtain for me from His bounty
the grace which I ardently desire from the depths of my heart [name it].

You who were so compassionate toward miserable sinners,
regard not the unworthiness of those who pray to you,
but the glory of God,
that it may once again be magnified
by the granting of the particular request
which I now ask for with persevering earnestness. Amen.

The Responsory of St. Anthony

If then you ask for miracles,
death, error, all calamities,
the leprosy and demons fly,
and health succeeds infirmities.

The sea obeys, and fetters break,
and lifeless limbs you do restore;
while treasures lost are found again,
when young and old your aid implore.

V. Pray for us, St. Anthony.
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

The Thirteen Tuesdays

The devotion of the Thirteen Tuesdays — prayers to St. Anthony on thirteen consecutive Tuesdays, ending near his feast — dates from a seventeenth-century tradition and is still kept in many parishes, especially in Italy and the Philippines.

About This Novena

Anthony was a brilliant preacher whose own books went missing — a novice took his psalter, and the story goes that after Anthony prayed, the man brought it back. From so small a thing came the patronage that has him searching for car keys eight centuries later.