Picture in Focus: St. Anthony the Matchmaker by Jose Franciso Borges

November 19, 2023

Picture in Focus: St. Anthony the Matchmaker by Jose Franciso Borges

The saint known as Anthony of Padua was born as Fernando to a wealthy Portuguese family in Lisbon. He entered an Augustinian monastery at 15 but was drawn to the evangelical fervor of the Franciscan Order, where his intellectual prowess and rhetorical gifts soon made him one of the new movement’s most eloquent preachers and teachers. The personal sanctity and good works of Anthony of Padua were so widely recognized he was canonized within a year of his death in 1231. When his body was exhumed three decades later his "golden tongue" was said to have remained uncorrupted. The saint’s intercession is sought in recovering lost or stolen objects—as well as lost people and lost souls.  Brazilians consider Anthony to be the Matchmatcher Saint, the object of special devotion of the lovelorn who are seeking spouses, as we see in this week’s featured color woodblock print from Jose Francisco Borges, the patriarch of a family dynasty of folk art printmakers who depict whimsical scenes of rural life and religious customs in their “outback” home region of Northeastern Brazil. (John Kohan)