Every June 13, Catholics around the world celebrate the feast of Saint Anthony of Padua. For most, he’s the quick miracle worker who helps recover misplaced keys, lost wallets, or that library book you swear you just had. But Saint Anthony was much more than a “patron saint of lost things.” He was a preacher, a teacher, a scholar, and a spiritual guide whose life still points us toward Christ today.
I have a personal connection with Anthony that goes beyond anecdotes. My oldest son shares his birthday with Anthony’s feast day, which somehow makes the saint feel like a family friend. Growing up with ADHD, I’ve had my fair share of forgotten items, most memorably my car keys during a summer music camp away from home. Thanks to Saint Anthony, they were found, though it involved my mom driving up to unlock the car. Moments like that, small and practical, are reminders of the saint’s intercession, but they also hint at a deeper truth: Anthony helps us find what is lost, both in the tangible and spiritual sense.
Born Fernando in Lisbon around 1195, he grew up in a noble family and was initially part of the Augustinian canons. He studied Scripture and the Church Fathers, preparing for the life of preaching and teaching that would later define him. Around 1220, Fernando encountered the memory of early Franciscan martyrs who had gone to Morocco to witness the Gospel, even risking death. Inspired, he left the Augustinians, joined the Friars Minor, and took the name Anthony. Though his missionary plans were curtailed by illness, he embraced the Franciscan way with zeal, eventually becoming Provincial Superior in northern Italy, preaching tirelessly, and guiding his fellow friars until his death near Padua in 1231.
The Catholic Church traditionally dedicates each month of the year to a specific devotion, helping the faithful grow in prayer, holiness, and reflection on Christ, Mary, or the saints. June is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The Sacred Heart of Jesus devotion focuses on Christ’s divine-human love—the “entire mystery” of Jesus considered most intimately in his person as God the Son and the source of infinite charity that saves and sanctifies. 1 It is rooted in Scripture’s imagery of Christ “pierced” on the side, from which blood and water flow, and in the Church’s invitation to a deeper communion with Jesus’ mercy and humility.
Saint Catherine of Siena was one of the greatest followers of Christ. Her ability to articulate the Gospel and her courage to call even the papacy to reform are among the key reasons she is one of my favorite saints. My youngest daughter is even named after this amazing saint, which means her story shows up often in our home in very real and tangible ways.
Read on to learn five amazing facts about Catherine:
Saint Patrick lived in the 5th century and was a Christian missionary. He was instrumental in converting Ireland to Christianity. Known most for his usage of the shamrock to help explain the Trinity, Patrick’s successfully converted the pagans.
Several posts on this feast day focus on “little known facts” or about whether Saint Patrick was actually Irish. I’m going to do something a bit different. Saint Patrick’s Breastplate prayer always provided me with great comfort. This article will examine the various aspects of his prayer.
Here’s the short version of the prayer (for the long version check out the link in the related resources at the end of this article):
In the autumn of 1873, Saint John Bosco shared a vision with his spiritual director that would crystallize the spiritual wisdom of his entire life’s work. In this dream, he beheld the Church as a mighty ship besieged by enemy vessels bent on her destruction. Yet amid the chaos and bombardment, two towering columns rose from the sea, steadfast and unshakeable. One was crowned with a statue of the Immaculate Virgin, bearing the inscription “Help of Christians.” The other, taller and more enduring still, supported a Eucharistic Host and proclaimed, “Salvation of believers.” The Pope, steering the flagship through the storm, safely moored the Church to these two columns. At that moment, all enmity dissolved.
For Bosco, this vision was no mere spiritual fantasy. It was the culmination of decades spent educating poor and neglected youth. It revealed the deepest conviction of his pedagogical mission: that the salvation and flourishing of souls rests entirely upon devotion to Mary and frequent reception of the Eucharist. To understand Saint John Bosco as a teacher is to understand him as a herald of these two pillars, and to grasp their central importance for Catholic life today.
The Foundation: Reason, Religion, and Love
Don Bosco’s approach to education, which he termed the “Preventive System,” stands in sharp contrast to the harsh disciplinary methods of his era. Where other educators relied on fear, punishment, and distance, Bosco built his entire method on a trinomial foundation: reason, religion, and love. This was not mere sentimentality. It was a profound theological conviction about the nature of the human person and the work of formation.
The Preventive System sought to prevent faults rather than punish them after the fact. Bosco believed that young people, prone to fickleness and distraction, often stumbled not from malice but from momentary forgetfulness or weakness. A strict system of repression might stop disorder, but it could never transform hearts. It would breed resentment, bitterness, and revenge—scars that lasted into adulthood. Instead, Bosco positioned educators as loving fathers who would walk alongside their charges, offering counsel, warning them of dangers ahead, and drawing them toward goodness through affection and trust.
The genius of Bosco’s method lay in its recognition that education is fundamentally a work of the heart. An educator must first be loved before he can be respected. He must be present, not as a distant authority, but as a benefactor invested in each student’s welfare. This way, the educator becomes a cherished guide, whose words and counsel stay with the student long after school ends.
The championship game of our Tecmo Bowl the Board Game tournament came down to a moment that still makes my stomach twist a little when I replay it in my head.
For those unfamiliar, Tecmo Bowl the Board Game is a tabletop version of the classic NES football game. Instead of controllers, you use play cards, dice, and team abilities to simulate drives, turnovers, and big plays. It feels part chess, part nostalgia, and part living-room Super Bowl. It is also shockingly intense for something made of cardboard.
In the final, I was playing as Dallas and my son was playing as Indianapolis. These are generic versions of the classic NFL teams, so there are no mascots or logos involved, just colors, stats, and a lot of competitive pride.
Dallas had the ball at the five-yard line. Four chances to punch it in. Four chances to ice the game.
They went nowhere on first down. Nothing on second. Stopped cold on third.
Then we made a call that felt heroic and foolish at the same time. We went for it on fourth down.
Sponsored: This article is made possible by The Elijah Institute, supporting quality and engaging Catholic content.
When we think of biblical heroes, we often picture prophets thundering truths before kings, parting clouds with miracles, and walking through fire with unwavering faith. Elijah fits that image—at least, at first glance. But Scripture doesn’t give us glossy, airbrushed Saints. It gives us real people. And Elijah? Elijah broke down.
His story is one of the clearest in the Bible about what we today would recognize as emotional collapse: anxiety, burnout, despair, even suicidal thoughts. He shows us that holiness and mental struggle are not opposites. They’re often companions.
And his story, now more than ever, speaks directly to those on the front lines of healing—doctors, nurses, counselors, first responders—those who bear others’ pain while quietly carrying their own.
Elijah’s Collapse: After the Fire Comes the Silence
Elijah’s public high point comes on Mount Carmel. In a head-to-head showdown with 450 prophets of Baal, Elijah calls down fire from heaven—and God answers. It’s the kind of moment you’d expect to come with a lifetime supply of spiritual confidence. But it doesn’t.
The very next chapter opens with Elijah running. Queen Jezebel threatens his life, and he flees into the desert, overwhelmed and undone. No followers. No plan. Just a prophet unraveling under the weight of everything.
He prays, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers” (1 Kings 19:4). It’s one of the rawest prayers in all of Scripture.
Elijah had done everything right—and still, he hit a wall. It wasn’t a weakness. It was the human cost of doing the will of God in a broken world.
Elijah Fed by the Ravens by Paolo Fiammingo (between 1585 and 1589).
God Doesn’t Lecture. He Nourishes.
Here’s where things get profoundly beautiful. God doesn’t scold Elijah. He doesn’t give him a pep talk or demand that he pull himself together. He sends an angel. With a snack.
“Arise and eat,” the angel says, “or the journey will be too much for you” (1 Kings 19:7).
God tends to Elijah’s physical needs first: food, water, rest. Then again. And again. Only after Elijah’s body and spirit are gently restored does God speak—on Mount Horeb—not in fire or thunder, but in “a still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12).
This is a pattern worth noticing. God understands that healing the whole person—body, mind, and soul—takes time, nourishment, and silence.
Beyond Burnout: The Wounds of Those Who Heal
Elijah’s breakdown wasn’t just about fear. It was about exhaustion, conscience, and the weight of standing alone in truth. Today, we might call this moral injury —a term used to describe the trauma experienced not just from violence or stress, but from the deeper wounds that come when we carry burdens of conscience.
This kind of injury often shows up in those who work in healing ministries: doctors, nurses, first responders, therapists, clergy. These are the people who run toward pain. And like Elijah, they often find themselves emptied out after doing everything “right.”
Moral injury, at its root, is spiritual. It’s the aching question: Did I do enough? Did I do the right thing? Sacred moral injury goes even further—it touches the conscience. It’s a wound that doesn’t just need therapy; it needs forgiveness, reconciliation, and grace.
As one contributor to The Elijah Institute’s work shared in a recent conversation, many of the therapists they train encounter clients (and sometimes themselves) dealing with this very wound. It’s not just burnout. It’s soul-weariness.
The Catholic Response: Integrated, Personal, Sacramental
The Elijah Institute’s model—what they call BPSS-M: Biopsychosocial-Spiritual-Moral—is a Catholic approach to mental health that sees the person as a unity of body, mind, soul, and relationships. It acknowledges that some pain is physical, some emotional, some spiritual—and some moral.
This matters, especially for Catholic therapists. Because not every trauma heals through clinical work alone. Some needs must be named before God. Some wounds require absolution, or a return to the sacraments, or the courage to ask forgiveness.
Elijah’s story echoes this reality. His despair wasn’t irrational—it made sense given what he’d been through. But it also needed God’s personal response. A whisper. A call. A mission renewed.
The Restless Heart and the Path to Peace
St. Augustine, whose own conversion was marked by interior struggle, wrote, “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
That restlessness shows up in our modern world in the form of anxiety, perfectionism, and relentless overcommitment. We chase success, affirmation, control—only to find ourselves under our own version of the broom tree, like Elijah, crying out in quiet despair.
But healing—true healing—comes when we let God into the silence. When we accept that therapy, nutrition, community, and prayer are not separate tools, but part of one great invitation: Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest (Matt. 11:28).
Not a Quick Fix, But a Real Hope
Elijah didn’t walk away from Mount Horeb with all his problems solved. He still had to walk his road, face kings, mentor Elisha, and trust again. But he wasn’t the same.
His story reminds us that even prophets cry out in exhaustion. Even saints feel despair. And the God who calls fire from Heaven is also the God who whispers in the dark.
If you or someone you love is walking through burnout, moral injury, or spiritual exhaustion, know this: you’re not alone. And you don’t have to figure it out by yourself.
Catholic therapists formed in integrated care, like those trained by The Elijah Institute, are helping men and women reconnect the dots between psychology and spirituality—between moral wounds and Divine Mercy. Healing isn’t always fast, but it’s always possible.
Final Thoughts
Elijah’s life is not just a tale from long ago. It’s a mirror for us. For those doing God’s work and wondering why it hurts so much. For those exhausted by goodness. For those who pray, “Lord, I’ve had enough.”
God hears. God feeds. God speaks.
And He still says to you today:
Arise and eat. The journey is long. But I am with you.
Thanks again to today’s article sponsor, The Elijah Institute! Learn more about how they’re equipping Catholic mental health professionals to care for the whole person—body, mind, and soul—through integrated, faith-filled training at The Elijah Institute.
