St. Anthony Maria Pucci, OSM (January 12th)

Of the Saints and Feast Days commemorated this week:

Jan 5 SUN - THE EPIPHANY OF THE LORD - Solemnity

Jan 5 - St. John Neumann, Bishop (USA)

Jan 6 - Saint André Bessette, Religious (USA)

Jan 7 - Saint Raymond of Penyafort, Priest, Religious

Jan 12 SUN - THE BAPTISM OF THE LORD - Feast

Jan 12 - St. Anthony Pucci, OSM, Priest, Religious (OSM)


I’m choosing to write about my Order’s St. Anthony Pucci, OSM.


The future St. Anthony Pucci, OSM was born on April 16, 1819 in the town of Vernio outside of Florence in the then Grand Duchy of Tuscany in today's Italy.


If in previous centuries many of the Church’s Saints remembered on its Liturgical Calendar came from noble or otherwise wealthy families, the future St. Anthony Pucci, OSM came from a poor family –  his father was the sacristan at the local church.  


His rise to the priesthood and sainthood would resemble more the path of St. John XXIII who also came from a very poor if also still Italian family, than say St. Charles Borromeo, St. Francis Xavier, SJ, or St. Peter Canisius, SJ, who all came from noble or upper middle class families and about all of whom I have written previously. 


The future St. Anthony Pucci, OSM also lived at a time when influences of the culture tended to promote the values of both the practicality (post-Enlightenment) of parish life and the “simplicity” / “lyricism” of “country life” (Romanticism).  


So that the future St. Anthony Pucci, OSM spent most of his ordained life, 45 years, being the simple if cherished parish priest (curatino) of a then utterly insignificant fishing village named Viareggio on the Tuscan-Mediterranean coast made him an exemplary model of a priest at the time.


For this was the time when people like St. John Vianney  and St. Bernadette also born into a very poor and simple family out in the Pyrrenean hinterlands, the “little flower” St. Therese Lisieux, OCarm, a simple nun who did keep a journal, were all being raised to sainthood.   


St. Anthony Pucci’s cause was being promoted at the time of the extreme popularity of a truly lovely series of books and  films about the life of the fictional “Dom Camillo,” who in the story served as the parish priest of a small town in Italy in the 1940s-50s (basically Italy’s version of Mayberry from the 1950s era Andy Griffith Show).  


So St. Anthony Pucci’s honesty / integrity in serving his little flock well all those years – offering the comfort of both the Servite devotion of Our Lady of Sorrows to widows of fishermen lost to storms at sea, as well as assistance through the then new and justly promoted St. Vincent de Paul Society which provided material help for the local poor – served to make him a lovely example of a good, honest parish priest for my order.


If the larger church had St. John Vianney, the “Curé d’Ars,” my Order came to have St. Anthony Pucci, OSM, the “Curatino di Viareggio” as our Servite equivalent.


And there’s little to object to with this.  A religious order survives in as much as its spirituality can adapt to the times.  At a time when Catholic life was almost synonymous with parish life and Catholic parochial schools offered a path out of poverty and to greater opportunities, St. Anthony Pucci served as an excellent model for a pastor of such a Parish community.


We do however live in a different time, when the parish or for that matter the village / small town or neighborhood no longer dominate life like they once did.  


At this time, looking at some of those other saints mentioned above or written about throughout this blog may offer or inspire new or updated ways to live out the faith.  


Still much Catholic life remains played out at the parish level, and St. Anthony Pucci, OSM offers us all an excellent example about both leadership and care.


St. Anthony Pucci, OSM, pray for us!



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