By Paul McMullen

One-hundred and 12 years after newcomers to America prayed to St. Anthony of Padua to intercede in the face of impending disaster, Little Italy caught another break in the weather June 5. Heavy rain in the forecast didn't arrive until the Feast of St. Anthony Italian Festival was in its closing hours, well after a religious procession that began and ended at St. Leo the Great Parish.

"St. Anthony came through for us again," Deacon Douglas P. Kendzierski said after the Mass that preceded the procession. The parish's St. Anthony Society was founded in 1904, the year of the Great Baltimore Fire that reshaped the city. As flames spread east and residents fled to Patterson Park, according to the parish history, the faithful of St. Leo the Great "gathered on the east bank of the Jones Falls and prayed to God to spare them."

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Source: http://www.catholicreview.org/