On June 13th, the Church celebrates Saint Anthony of Padua. St. Anthony was a Franciscan friar and a doctor of the Church, who was born and raised in Lisbon, Portugal. After joining the Franciscan Order, he moved to Padua, Italy, where he worked and died. Though St. Anthony is venerated worldwide, there is only one place where he has appeared. It happened in a tiny village located in Western Poland, called Radecznica. In May 1664, a special event took place in the small village. Szymon the weaver had an apparition from the saint. St. Anthony gave him some messages, one of them was the request of constructing a shrine in a nearby hill. And St. Anthony made a promise that because he appeared near a water source, whoever came to this place and cleaned their wounds or drank the water with faith, would be given graces. The news of the miraculous water spread all over the country and soon after, the Shrine of St. Anthony was erected next to the lake. The fame of the Shrine of St. Anthony eventually reached the Vatican and in 2015, Pope Francis granted it the title of a minor basilica.
