Saint Anthony Mary Zaccaria

Saint Anthony Mary Zaccaria was an Italian priest, a physician by training, and the founder of the Clerics Regular of Saint Paul, known as the Barnabites. He lived only thirty-six years, and his spirituality grew from the letters of Saint Paul and from love for Christ crucified and present in the Eucharist. The Church commemorates him on July 5.

He was born in Cremona, in Lombardy, in 1502 or 1503. His father died when Anthony was still a small child, and his mother took charge of his upbringing. He studied at Padua, where in 1524 he received a doctorate in medicine. After returning to his native city he treated the sick, especially the poor, but he devoted more and more of his time to explaining the Gospel and the catechism to adults and children.

This ministry led him to the priesthood: he was ordained in 1528. Soon afterward he moved to Milan, and there, together with two Milanese, Bartolomeo Ferrari and Giacomo Antonio Morigia, he founded a community of priests living under a common rule. Pope Clement VII approved it in Bologna on February 18, 1533. The name Barnabites comes from the Milanese church of Saint Barnabas, with which the community became linked.

Anthony also founded the congregation of the Angelic Sisters of Saint Paul, who, unlike the nuns of their time, did not live in enclosure, and a community of married people striving for holiness in marriage. These three families, which he called colleges, were united by the imitation of Saint Paul; he called himself a priest of Paul the Apostle. He reminded all the faithful that they were called to become not small saints but great ones.

He is credited with the public Forty Hours’ devotion, with exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, and with the custom of ringing the bells every Friday at 3 p.m. in memory of the hour of Christ’s death. His zeal, however, met with opposition: he was accused of heresy and rebellion. He went to Rome to give an account of his foundations and was acquitted.

Worn out by his labors, he fell seriously ill during a journey to Guastalla. He was brought to Cremona, to his mother’s house, where he died on July 5, 1539. According to tradition, in his last moments he had a vision of Saint Paul.

Pope Leo XIII declared him blessed on January 3, 1890, and canonized him in Saint Peter’s Basilica on May 27, 1897. On the 500th anniversary of his birth, John Paul II called him a tireless imitator of the Apostle of the Gentiles and a shining model of pastoral charity.