I am fairly sure that St Anthony was one of the first saints I ever asked for any help. The reason? I was (okay, am) a bit of a scatterbrain (and a bit might be an understatement, I hear my friends already), and when I was a child, this meant that I was always misplacing things. Add to that an acute sense of catastrophe and a generous helping of fear, and you get the impression of how stressed out losing things would make me. I had read in Reader’s Digest or something that St Anthony was your guy if you wanted something found–and one day I got desperate enough to ask. I had been so conditioned that saints were evil and Catholics were idolaters that it felt like I was doing something terribly, gravely wrong.
I have zero recollection of what it was I had lost, or if I ever found it. But I like to think that while St Anthony didn’t help find my lost thing, he instead helped find me, a little lost sheep now happy-grateful-sheepily-joyful to have been returned to the flock of the Good Shepherd. May he intercede for all those lost in the realest sense, and may he help keep us found!
(Also, just a reminder about all his other saintly qualities, i.e. not just finding your lost thing, although I’m sure he’s more than happy, in his saintly charity, to do that for you! I suppose that sets an example for all of us, not to despise the littlest opportunities for charity.)
the lexical form 