Reading Reddit, I'm told to pray to St. Anthony to find what I've lost. It works every time, they say. I've never tried, not being steeped in Catholicism or saints. Only learning a few years ago that St. Jude is the patron saint of lost causes, and a few days ago that a candidate for sainthood must have performed two or more miracles to qualify.
St. Anthony is associated with lost items, but his benevolence seems to extend to lost people and places too. He's the patron saint of shipwrecks, travelers, the poor, and the oppressed.
Do any of the saints protect the lost who prefer not to be found?
I have little interest in found people and places. The discovered and self-discovered who live in light, without mystery. Give me the ones missing pieces, searching for stairs in the dark. The hills who speak over centuries. The little lives I will never see, whose many miracles are protected by silence.
Apr 20
