Saint Anthony the priest spent long hours in the confessional.
There he was brought face to face with strange and sorrowful problems of all kinds. One penitent in particular found that, when he knelt at the feet of this young Franciscan priest, he was unable to confess his sins. The sorrow which filled his heart was so great that he simply could not speak. Anthony read that heart and and knew that it was sincerely penitent. so he said to the man, "Go home, write your sins on a piece of paper, then bring the paper back to me."
The man did so. Anthony bade him read the list. Obediently the penitent started with the first. To his astonishment he saw that, as soon as he had told it, the name of each sin disappeared from the paper. So it went on. When the last sin had been confessed, the paper was perfectly blank.
~ Saint Anthony ora pro nobis ~
