Saint Anthony Mary Zaccaria, Confessor
S. Antonii Mariae Zaccaria Confessoris
Saint Anthony Mary Zaccaria, a physician turned priest, founded the Barnabite Fathers and laboured for the renewal of Christian life through frequent Communion, preaching, and devotion to the Crucified Lord.
Saint Anthony Mary Zaccaria was born in 1502 at Cremona, in northern Italy. Left fatherless as a child, he was raised by a devout mother and grew up gentle, charitable, and given to prayer. He studied medicine at Padua and for a time practised as a physician, but he found himself drawn ever more to the care of souls rather than of bodies, and so he turned to the study of theology and was ordained a priest.
A founder and reformer
Filled with zeal for the renewal of the Church in his day, Saint Anthony Mary devoted himself to preaching, to the instruction of the people, and to calling the faithful back to fervour. He founded a congregation of priests known, from the church of Saint Barnabas in Milan, as the Barnabites, and he had a part likewise in the foundation of communities of religious women and of devout lay folk, that the work of renewal might reach every state of life. The collect of his feast remembers how, taught in the spirit of the Apostle Paul by that surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ, he gathered new families of clerics and of virgins in the Church.
He preached penance and the amendment of life, often in the open squares, and he laboured to restore among the people the practice of frequent Communion and devotion to the Passion of our Lord and to the Most Holy Eucharist. He is remembered as one who helped to revive the custom of the Forty Hours’ devotion before the Blessed Sacrament.
His holy death
Worn out by his labours while still a young man, Saint Anthony Mary Zaccaria fell ill and returned to his native Cremona, where he died on the fifth of July, 1539, at the age of about thirty-six. He was canonised in the nineteenth century, and his feast is kept on the day of his death.
In him the Church honours a priest of burning charity who spent himself wholly for Christ in a brief span of years, and who taught the faithful to draw near to the Crucified Lord and to the altar. His memory remains a summons to fervour, to penance, and to love of the Holy Eucharist.
The Collect
Grant, O Lord our God, that in the spirit of Paul the Apostle we may learn that surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ, wherein blessed Anthony Mary, being wondrously instructed, gathered together in thy Church new families of clerics and of virgins.
Fac nos, Dómine Deus, supereminéntem Iesu Christi sciéntiam, spíritu Pauli Apóstoli, edíscere: qua beátus Antónius María mirabíliter erudítus, novas in Ecclésia tua clericórum et vírginum famílias congregávit.
Patronage
He is venerated as the founder of the Barnabite Fathers and is invoked for the renewal of priestly and religious life and for devotion to the Holy Eucharist.
In the Modern Calendar
In the modern calendar his memorial is observed on the same day, 5 July, as an optional memorial.
Common Questions
When is the feast of Saint Anthony Mary Zaccaria?
His feast is kept on 5 July in the calendar of the 1962 Roman Missal, as a Third Class feast. The modern calendar likewise observes him on 5 July, as an optional memorial.
Who was Saint Anthony Mary Zaccaria?
He was a sixteenth-century Italian physician who became a priest and founded the Barnabite Fathers. He laboured for the renewal of Christian life through preaching, frequent Communion, and devotion to the Passion of Christ, and died in 1539 at about the age of thirty-six.
What is he remembered for?
Besides founding the Barnabites, he is remembered for promoting frequent reception of Holy Communion, devotion to the Crucified Lord and the Blessed Sacrament, and the revival of the Forty Hours’ devotion. His brief life was marked by burning zeal for souls.
See where this feast falls in the Church’s year on the liturgical calendar, or find a Traditional Latin Mass near you.
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