I Thought I Didn’t Have a Prayer

Getting saintly help for finding what I'd lost

I don’t pray often, but when I do, it’s because I’m feeling fortunate and I want to voice my gratitude. Thank you, G*d, for letting me live to see another day. Prayers of thanksgiving.

I shy away from prayers that ask for individualized help or material goodies—those called prayers for intercession.

I’m not at all sure who I’m praying to, or what happens “out there” when I pray. All I can know is what happens in me. Gratitude feels right. Even when I feel crappy, I’m happy to be waking up again, especially at my age, and happy that I’ve been given another sunrise.

So, this is about a prayer. I’m not testifying. I’m not proselytizing. I’m just reporting, because what happened with me, Saint Anthony and my car’s key fob really happened, and I gotta say, it got my attention.

I grew up in a Catholic neighborhood, but we were Lutherans. Lutherans didn’t talk much about saints.

I shed Lutheranism, and organized religion in general, just a few years after my confirmation.

Over the past three decades, if anything, I’ve self-identified as Jew-ish, which has put me at even more of a remove from saintly matters.

My girlfriend Mary Beth was raised Catholic. She’s Jewish now, but it was MB who told me about praying to Saint Anthony, the patron saint of lost things, when you’re having trouble finding something. She swears by it.

She knew about Saint Anthony’s prayer as a kid, forgot about it, and was reminded of it a few months ago by…who else? A Jewish friend.

MB had lost an important check. She prayed to Saint Anthony, and the check showed up. Was it a prayer answered? Coincidence? Or maybe manifesting, made manifest?

—

One day recently, I lost my car’s silver, football-shaped key fob somewhere between my home and our community charging station, a ten-minute walk.

The charger has a time limit, with a stiff, per-minute penalty for overstaying. It adds up fast.

I noticed my clicker missing about ten minutes before my time was up. Without the key fob, I couldn’t decouple, because unlocking the car unlocks the charging cable from the port.

I hurried back to Mary Beth’s place (across the street from mine) to get my spare fob, then ran back to the lot. Once I’d decoupled and moved my car, I scanned the area around the charger for mine. No luck.

“Retrace your steps,” my dad always said, and so I did. I started at DeSalvo’s Pizza, where I’d paused for a salad and a slice after I’d connected at the charger. I checked the floors, then asked if anyone had turned in a key fob. No, they said, but they offered to keep an eye out.

After I’d taken my car home, I retraced my steps to the charger on one side of the street, scanning as I went. No fob. I crossed, and came back on the other side, scanning as I walked.

Nothing.

I searched both sides of the street again, going in the opposite direction. Still no key fob. It was getting dark, so I set my search aside until the next day.

They say that the first 24 hours are crucial in finding a missing person, and that the rate of success drops precipitously with each hour that goes by after that. I wondered if that applied to missing key fobs, and hoped that maybe I was still inside that 24 hour window.

As I was setting out, Mary Beth asked me if I had said a prayer to Saint Anthony. I hadn’t, but I wondered out lout if there was a dollar-value threshold for things that Saint Anthony would concern himself with. I thought that my loss was probably nowhere near tragic enough to qualify for sanctified help.

As I stepped out the door to embark on one more sweep though, I stopped, thought for a minute, then pulled out my phone and looked up Saint Anthony’s prayer.

Saint Anthony of Padua is the patron saint of lost things. There are a number of ready-made prayers to him, including one like a nursery rhyme.

I went with a version that sounded more like a prayer to me. With Google as my intermediary, I read aloud a brief prayer to Saint Anthony. At the end, I added a few things like, if you’re not too busy finding really important things, if this doesn’t seem too selfish, thanks in advance…

I began retracing my steps again, moving slowly, breathing steadily, and scanning side to side as I walked. When the occasional impulse to reach for my phone bubbled up, I tamped it down, kept my focus.

I checked at the charging lot, and I checked in at DeSalvo’s again. No dice.

I crossed the street for one more sweep back toward home, slowly, steadily, scanning as I walked.

Less than a block from my home, a silvery, football-shaped object caught my eye. My hopes spiked until the object came into focus—a weathered pine cone. I chuckled to myself, wondering if my description to Saint Anthony hadn’t been detailed enough. Maybe the pinecone was the best fit from Anthony’s frame of reference. I don’t imagine he’d seen a Hyundai key fob, even in booming, 13th century Padua.

Nice try, Anthony—can I call you that?— but that’s not it.

About thirty yards from home, I caught the glint of a silver, oval object on my left. It looked pretty convincing, until I got close enough to recognize the chrome handle from a water shut-off valve.

That made me laugh out loud.

Had I been too careless in my description? Was Saint Anthony messing with me? Or was it more of a, “is this what you meant?,” struggling, just doing the best he could with what I’d given him?

No, that’s not what I meant, but thanks for trying.

Still smiling and chuckling to myself, nearly home, about fifteen feet on, another silver, football-shaped object came into view.

There on our parkway, held aloft by some tall grass, my key fob seemed to float up to greet me.

Yeah, Saint Anthony, that’s it. That’s what I lost. Thank you, nice job, patron saint of lost things.

—

So again, the question arises. Was this an answered prayer? An amusing coincidence? Was it manifesting with intention?

I’m sure I don’t know, and I don’t need to know.

I do plan to stick with my customary preference for prayers of thanksgiving over prayers for intercession, though. It seems to be working.