You're listening to the SSPX Podcast.

We're happy to present another installment of true heroes.

Stories of the Lives of the Saints, delivered by Father Thomas Tam.

Father has also put together a video of each of these episodes.

You can see the video at SSPX Podcast.com.

Now here's Father Tam.

While other martyrs suffered by sacrificing their own lives, the Blessed Virgin suffered by sacrificing her son's life, St. Antoninus.

Hello, my friends, welcome to true heroes.

Today we are going to consider the life of St. Antoninus, whose virtue and generosity toward the poor, awarded him the title, Father of the Poor.

Let us begin his story.

St. Antoninus was born on March 1, 1389.

His parents, Niccolo and Tomasina Pierozzi, were in high standing, Niccolo being a notary of the Florentine Republic.

At the age of 15, so in 1404, Antoninus applied to Blessed John Dominic, then at the convent of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, for admission to the

Dominican order, and was accepted a year later. As a theologian, he took part in the council

Florence in 1439, and gave hospitality in St. Marks to the Dominican theologians called to the council by Pope Eugene the 4th.

St. Antoninus was known for his great virtue, especially for his spirit of sacrifice, wishing to suffer much for the conversion of sinners.

He never ate meat, except in cases of extreme illness. He slept only a few hours a night and on the ground, or on a piece of wood.

He always wore a hair shirt, which is a shirt made of rough cloth or animal hair, which is very painful to the skin,

and also an iron girdle next to his skin. He was also known for his charity to the poor.

He never refused alms when asked in the name of God. When he had no money to give, he gave his clothes or his shoes or the furniture from his house or his palace.

One day as he was on the way to visiting the Pope, a beggar came up to him, almost naked, and asked for alms for Christ's

sake. Outdoing St. Martin, who gave a beggar only part of his cloak, St. Antoninez gave his

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