Confessor
On July 5, the Catholic Church remembers St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria. A renowned preacher and promoter of Eucharistic adoration, he founded the order of priests now known as the Barnabites. He was later than St. Cajetan and before St. Ignatius of Loyola when he was called to be the father of one of those religious families which arose in such numbers during the 16th century to repair the ruins of the house of God.
In 2001, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, wrote the preface for a book on St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria, praising the saint as “one of the great figures of Catholic reform in the 1500s,” who was involved “in the renewal of Christian life in an era of profound crisis.”
"The Italian saint", Cardinal Ratzinger wrote, “deserves to be rediscovered” as “an authentic man of God and of the Church, a man burning with zeal, a demanding forger of consciences, a true leader able to convert and lead others to good.”
Anthony Mary Zaccaria was born into an Italian family of nobility in Cremona during 1502. His father Lazzaro died shortly after Anthony's birth, and his mother Antonietta – though only 18 years old – chose not to marry again, preferring to devote herself to charitable works and her son's education.
Antonietta's son took after her in devotion to God and generosity toward the poor. He studied Latin and Greek with tutors in his youth, and was afterward sent to Pavia to study philosophy. He went on to study medicine at the University of Padua, earning his degree at age 22 and returning to Cremona.
Despite his noble background and secular profession, the young doctor had no intention of either marrying or accumulating wealth. While caring for the physical conditions of his patients, he also encouraged them to find spiritual healing through repentance and the sacraments.
Anthony also taught catechism to children, and went on to participate in the religious formation of young adults. He eventually decided to withdraw from the practice of medicine, and with the encouragement of his spiritual director he began to study for the priesthood.
Ordained a priest at age 26, Anthony is said to have experienced a miraculous occurrence during his first Mass, being surrounded by a supernatural light and a multitude of angels during the consecration of the Eucharist. Contemporary witnesses marveled at the event, and testified to it after his death.
Church life in Cremona had suffered decline in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The new priest encountered widespread ignorance and religious indifference among laypersons, while many of the clergy were either weak or corrupt.
In these dire circumstances, Anthony Mary Zaccaria devoted his life to proclaiming the truths of the Gospel both clearly and charitably. Within two years, his eloquent preaching and tireless pastoral care is said to have changed the moral character of the city dramatically.
In 1530, Anthony moved to Milan, where a similar spirit of corruption and religious neglect prevailed. There, he decided to form a priestly society, the Clerics Regular of St. Paul.
Despite opposition of various kinds, in 1532 the Constitutions of his two communities were approved by Pope Clement VII. Their founder defended his religious with persevering gentleness in all the difficulties they encountered, and recommended to them to spend their free moments in conversation with Jesus crucified. God favored him with exceptional gifts; he read in hearts and saw the future.
Inspired by the apostle's life and writings, the order was founded on a vision of humility, asceticism, poverty, and preaching. After the founder's death, they were entrusted with a prominent church named for St. Barnabas, and became commonly known as the “Barnabites.”
This new Congregation began its life in the Oratory of Eternal Wisdom at Milan, and reached throughout Italy, and into France, Austria, Sweden, and even as far as China and Burma. The priest also founded a women's religious order, the Angelic Sisters of St. Paul; and an organization, the Laity of St. Paul, geared toward the sanctification of those outside the priesthood and religious life. He pioneered the “40 Hours” devotion, involving continuous prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. In 1539, Anthony became seriously ill and returned to his mother's house in Cremona. The founder of the Clerics Regular of St. Paul died on July 5, during the liturgical octave of the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, at the age of only 36.
In the next century, when Pope Urban VIII published his famous decrees concerning this cultus of Anthony Mary, it had already had been established for ninety-five years. Since these decrees required that the cultus should have been established for a century before it could claim to have acquired the right of prescription, and since, on the other hand, the witnesses required for the regular canonization of the servant of God were not around anymore, the case was closed. In 1890, however, Pope Leo XIII reinstituted the cultus of Anthony Mary.
Nearly three decades after his death, St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria's body was found to be incorrupt. He was beatified by Blessed Pope Pius IX in 1849, and declared a saint by Pope Leo XIII in 1897, who also extended his feast.
Why this emphasis on the Eucharist?
Monstrance supported by St Anthony Zaccaria (P. Tarani, 1955)
To appreciate the significance of Anthony Mary’s initiative, we should bear in mind the conditions surrounding the Eucharist at that time. Mass was celebrated on rare occasions. Holy Communion was a privilege denied, ordinarily, to the laity. Hence, the Blessed Sacrament was not kept, most of the time, at the main altar, but in the sacristy or in some dark church corner, even in a grimy wooden box where ants and other bugs could easily enter. Churches became places for anyone to stroll around, for lovers to meet, for people to hold conversations or games, or warehouses of sort for people to store household tools and goods. Against this background it is easier to understand the reason why St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria put so much emphasis on public and solemn display of devotion to the Eucharist.
For St. Anthony Zaccaria the Eucharist is the crucified Lord alive and living among us. The two poles of his spirituality are the crucified Lord and the Eucharist and the two are obviously connected.
St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria was a reformer, that is, a prominent figure of that 16th century spiritual revival movement known as the Catholic Reformation.
While Martin Luther sought to reform the Church as institution, St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria and other reformers were convinced that reformation of the Church had to start with the individual person, with personal conversion, with commitment to radical "self-reform."
What does personal conversion imply? It implies the possibility of saying with St. Paul, "I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me" (Gal 2, 20). What can effect this radical personal conversion, than transformation into Christ? St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria has no doubts: the Eucharist; the Eucharist is the sacrament of conversion. In his Sermon 3 he writes, "You turn to God… by offering Him sacrifices: the sacrifice of your bodies kept under control by penance for the love of God, the sacrifice of your souls eager to unite themselves with Him, but above all the sacrifice par excellence, the most holy Eucharist. No wonder that people have grown lukewarm and turned into beasts, as it were. It is because they do not receive this sacrament. The surest proof, then, of your return to God is that you go back to receive this food. Go back, my friends, go back to receive this sacrament. Nothing can make you holier than this sacrament, for in it is the Holy of Holies. Remember that Augustine exhorts you to receive Holy Communion at least once a week." And following St. Augustine exhortation, St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria prescribes in his Constitutions, "Let everybody, according to one's disposition, go to communion at least every Sunday and Holy Day of obligation" (Ch.1).
Eucharist the Sacrament of Conversion and Transformation
Saint Mary Anthony and the 40 Hour Devotion
The practice of private adoration of the Blessed Sacrament reposed in the tabernacle for a period of 40 consecutive hours, from Good Friday to Easter morning, existed before the time of St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria.
What Anthony Mary Zaccaria and the early Barnabites did in 1534 – 475 years ago - was to ask the authorization the expose publicly and solemnly the Blessed Sacrament for 40 hours in the Cathedral of Milan and to repeat that solemn exposition in turn in all the churches of Milan. The authorization was granted in 1537 and the practice took place for the first time from March to October 1537.
Historians dispute about the origin of the 40-hour Devotion. Did it originate with St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria and the first Barnabites? Or the Augustinians?
The practice of private adoration of the Blessed Sacrament reposed in the tabernacle for a period of 40 consecutive hours, from Good Friday to Easter morning, existed before the time of St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria.
What Anthony Mary Zaccaria and the early Barnabites did in 1534 – 484 years ago - was to ask the authorization the expose publicly and solemnly the Blessed Sacrament for 40 hours in the Cathedral of Milan and to repeat that solemn exposition in turn in all the churches of Milan. The authorization was granted in 1537 and the practice took place for the first time from March to October 1537.
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