They then sent him to Barcelona for his theology studies and after two years were, at his further request, chosen to represent the province of Aragon at the mission of Spanish Jesuits being sent to New Granada. FOR THE FEAST DAY OF ST. PETER CLAVER. Sometimes a hasty unkind word or some latent jealousy was enough to change allies, friends, or even blood relatives into hateful enemies ready to do battle. We made every effort to encourage them with friendly gestures and displayed in their presence the emotions which somehow naturally tend to hearten the sick. To conclude the sessions he would hold aloft the crucifix and have the slaves join in together with the prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Thou art my Father. Surely this man deserved some consideration, some appreciation for all he had done in Gods service. As his faithful friend and companion, Brother Nicholas, helped him into a bed, the saint moaned, This sickness is the reward for my sins. He became a bishop and instituted a feast in honor of Our Ladys Immaculate Conception., He was the forty-eighth Pope. He was a shining light in a dark time. Immediately he set out to help them, taking with him a free Negress named Magdalena, who used to collect alms in the city for the saint to distribute. The vicar general of the diocese officiated at the funeral. . On Ash Wednesday, Mark Wahlberg gave an interview to the Today Show about why faith is important to him, and working with the Catholic prayer app Hallow ( https://hallow.com/ ). Even in sickness he would not ease up. The saint suddenly startled everyone by crying out her name: Agustina, Agustina, while sprinkling her with holy water. He found employment in a local soap factory. True! But his sullen-ness and even the sadness reflected from his deep-set eyes were not the result of his excessive mortification. 1- Peter Heals the Crippled Beggar, Acts 3 1One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayerat three in the afternoon. Africans at that time were abused because they were backward and exploitable, not because they were black. Copyright 2022 Catholic Online. History has since criticized that era for its lack of certain principles of human rights and human dignity. So severe were the lashings that the neighbors shuddered when they heard the sound of them in the still of the night air. Too bad todays social experts werent around in the seventeenth century to help the slaves. The Negro nurse who was supposed to take care of him was a crude hard-hearted man who had no appreciation for what this great and burdensome invalid had done for his race. Again the gruesome routine began, washing their infections, kissing their sores, bandaging their wounds, even sweeping up their hovels. St. Peter Claver. The truck loaded with cement crossed the otherside of the divider after losing control and hit th, POPE FRANCIS ANGELUS Saint Peter's Square Sunday, 26 February 2023 ______________________________________ Dear brothers and sisters, buongiorno! Claver was buried in the floor off the sacristy of the chapel of the Jesuit residence. In 1602 he entered the Society of Jesus. He refused to be satisfied with a sloppy performance; each slave had to do it perfectly. Her condition, thank God, suddenly improved and both she and the baby are well. The two men conversed at length, discussing the Catholic position as opposed to the Protestant. When he was only thirteen, his mother Ana died, and within the same month his twenty-year-old brother followed her to the grave. The girls' school, called the St. Joseph's School For Girls (or the Spanish Indian Residential School for Girls), relocated to a 400-acre piece of land next to the St. Peter Claver School in Spanish, Ontario, in 1913; construction of St. Joseph's would not be completed until the following year, however.. Before parting from his beloved teacher, Claver was given a unique privilege, a privilege not granted to any other student, of keeping the spiritual notes that Brother Alphonsus had personally written for him. For two months, these blacks had been chained and shackled below deck in a floating hell, the men in one compartment, the women in another. After receiving Baptism from John in the Jordan, Jesus was called by the Father my beloved Son (Mt 3:17), and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in the form of a dove (cf. In despair over not being able to speak to the sick men, the frustrated priest called after her loudly, Magdalena, Magdalena, in the Name of God come back; these are or brothers, redeemed by the Blood of Jesus Christ. At these words the woman sighed a prayer for help and courageously returned. He studied at the Jesuit college of Barcelona, entered the Jesuit novitiate at Tarragona in 1602 and took his final vows on August 8th, 1604. He became the apostle of Cartagena as well as of the Africans and in so huge a work was aided by God with those gifts that particularly pertain to apostles, of miracles, of prophecy and of reading hearts. Forts also lined the harbor. After a wearisome voyage he landed with his companions at Cartagena what is today the coast of modern day Colombia, South America. Thank you. He was born in 1580 in a little town of Spain called Verdu in the diocese of Solfona and he was baptized Peter. Claver went to the door of the room in which the man was quarantined. Lifting his hands, they watered them with tears, crying out that they had lost their greatest friend and protector. But it would be inaccurate to label Father Claver as some kind of humanitarian. All he did for the ancestors aligned him with the God of love. If their depraved keepers were particularly cruel, they left the dead as they were, chained to the living, below the decks, where no fresh air could enter to relieve them even slightly. Copyright 2004-2020 Saint Benedict Center, Richmond, New Hampshire. Baptism was received with such an emotion of joy as to move the hardest heart. He was said to have the gift of prophecy as well as the ability to read souls. Moreover, the weather was hot, the stench so unbearable in the stuffy hut, and the sight so repulsive that the Negress took flight. He is the patron saint of Colombia, slaves, missionary work to Africans, and seafarers. These heroic acts of sublime love for his neighbor were by no means natural to Claver. Then they would learn the Our Father and the Hail Mary. Prizes were given to those who learned their prayers first. I love Thee very much. To counter the Protestant revolt, the Jesuits, founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola, had emerged from among the most talented of religious leaders for their time sworn to allegiance to their superior general and to the pope in Rome. Claver was a man who knew pain and knew its value. But for every chore he performed, whether it was sweeping the floors, changing linens, washing clothes or dishes, or cooking, the visiting Jesuit, in his humility, always first asked permission of the Superior. Its a filthy voyageas well as a laborious [one]., Sir Dalby Thomascommander of the Royal Africa Company at Cape Coast, the Gold Coast, c. 1700Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440-1870,Touchstone Books, 1997. He did such things not once, not twice, as some saints have done, but nearly every day for forty long toilsome years.Claver took care of Negro slaves. Daring explorers had sailed west and conquered new territories for the crown. And he delighted in good music. After his ordination in 1616, he dedicated himself by special vow to the service of the Negro slaves-a work that was to last for thirty-three years. They were especially amazed at the devoutness of the Catholic soldiers. Devil means divider. Claver couldnt remove the cross but he could make it sweet. Stay up to date with the latest news, information, and special offers. We asked them to make an act of contrition and to manifest their detestation of their sins. Peter Claver, SJ (Spanish: Pedro Claver y Corber; Catalan: Pere Claver i Corber; 26 June 1580 - 8 September 1654) was a Spanish Jesuit priest and missionary born in Verd (Catalonia, Spain) who, due to his life and work, became the patron saint of slaves, the Republic of Colombia, and ministry to African Americans.. During the 40 years of his ministry in the New Kingdom of Granada, it . Apostolate St. Peter Claver (1580-1654), whose memorial we celebrate today, offers a timely witness as our nation reckons anew with the enduring scourge of racism. After the Mass the saint happily accepted an invitation to dine with them- for he recognized in so doing a tremendous opportunity to save souls. unknown artist. This, of course, he had never done, except conditionally in cases of doubt, but he was nevertheless forbidden to baptize in the future. Through his efforts three hundred thousand souls entered the Church. In all this he found more opportunity to suffer. One poor prisoner, won to God by Father Claver, penned these pathetic words in his prayer book after receiving the death sentence: This book belongs to the happiest man in the world. He was an early Pioneer for Human Rites and showed. St. Peter Claver's work came to an end with his death on September 8, 1654. But what made this Jesuit in Cartagena a saint was not only his detachment from the world and attachment to Christ, but along with that, an astounding ability to reduce potency to act. During his life he baptized and instructed in the Faith more than 300,000 negroes. Printable Catholic Saints PDFs They knew he meant what he said and what he said was true. Since I am a bad priest, God no longer desires my services. Peter Claver, the man of action, was struck with a condition of almost total paralysis. Taking his beloved pupil aside, the humble teacher of saints (many great missionaries were guided by Rodriguez) spoke with authority: I cannot express to you the sorrow that I feel at seeing that God is unknown to the greater part of the world. Be at my window and direct me through when the vision blurs From out of the blue. Like all young men of his stripe he looked for adventure and new opportunities. Claver had a team of seven interpreters, one of whom spoke four African dialects, and with their help he taught the slaves and prepared them for baptism, not only in groups but individually; for the language difficulty was too great for him to make himself understood otherwise. Whole parts of their bodies were eaten away by the dreadful disease; some had lost limbs, others had loose parts of their faces; some had scarcely any resemblance to a human exterior remaining, and the odor emanating from their many sores was the worst the apostle anywhere encountered. In teaching his pupils religion he loved to use pictures. At the end of the Masses, a group of distinguished men approached the casket. Let us see, then, from whom he wants to divide him, and how he tempts him. Of course, more often than not he made use of much more religious means of intercession, such as relics, holy water (a sacramental that the saint never tired of sprinkling everywhere) and a rough-hewn cross of maple. Here he had more opportunities, even than in the slave pens, to satisfy has craving to love the unlovable. The saints searches for the sick and the abandoned took him frequently to the beaches, where occasionally, some poor aged or hopelessly maimed Negro would be dumped off by a heartless master to die. St. Peter Claver Sterling Silver Oval Pendant, Practical Practice of Fasting with Fr Dwight Longenecker, 10 important things to consider during Lent, The Happy Priest on Lent, Happiness and the Call to Selfless Love, Daily Readings for Tuesday, February 28, 2023, St. Hilary, Pope: Saint of the Day for Tuesday, February 28, 2023, Lenten Prayer: Prayer of the Day for Monday, February 27, 2023. Bot the saint knew it not. I love Thee very much, and he would have them repeat it many times over, I love Thee much, very, very much, while striking their breasts, his face and theirs bathed in tears. Your gift is tax-deductible as allowed by law. One day he happened to strike his breast against an angular piece of iron. St. Peter Claver Parish, which was founded in 1886 and administered by the Holy Ghost (Spiritan) Fathers, was Philadelphia's first designated African American parish. One shipload would average between five and six hundred blacks from as many as fifteen or twenty African nations or tribes. One of the brothers who was ordered to take care of the saint during one of his illnesses, when he saw that he still tormented himself so, exclaimed, Ah Father, how long is the ass to be thus harnessed?. Sometimes these sermons would last for hours, and he did not let the intense heat deter him. Much as he loved to visit the hospital of Saint Sebastian, the leprosarium of Saint Lazarus occupied the tenderest place in Clavers magnanimous heart. She also happened to be from Biafara and Claver needed her as a translator. Every year from twelve to fourteen slave ships entered the port of Cartagena. Claver would never recover from this illness. ". St. Peter Claver Parish in Tyler hosted the second-annual procession ceremony for the Lord of Miracles on Tuesday night. Late in 1861, a sharp piece of iron bruised his chest, resulting in . Or, again, with women who were in a habit of dressing immodestly, excusing themselves on account of the excessive heat, he would hand them pictures of a woman similarly garbed amid the torments of the fire and demons in hell. We had to force our way through the crowd until we reached the sick. They turned their eyes to Africa to find that labor force. Sometimes he would have to yield to nature and collapse. The holy man seemed to touch everyone. Here he met Saint Alphonsus Rodriguez, the man who was to thoroughly inspire him and send him on his lifes mission. Brother Rodriguez was an old man when he first laid eyes on the new student from Barcelona, but holiness knows no age; it matures and grows, but it is still the Presence of God in a soul. His troops- eighteen Negro interpreters, a Jesuit brother, a pious woman or two, and usually some prominent Cartagenian official. So, from Jesuit priestly ranks arose this dreamer, the young man Peter Claver, of upper middle class bearing, born in the city of Verdu in Catalonia about the year 1581. Some rights reserved. Though there was a time when his fellow Jesuits criticized Father Claver for his childlike methods of catechetics, nevertheless, for the childlike slaves, the basic-ness of Claver usually hit its mark fast. Spain of the 17th century proceeded with an unscrupulous imperialism, taking to the treacherous seas to pursue conquest in land, gold, silver, jewels, spices, sugar and tobacco. In all things he tried to imitate our holy Brother Alonso Rodriguez. A saint, a very great saint was in the formation. However, the monarchs, principally in Spain, did often lash out against the horrid abuses of a greedy and ugly system that they should never even have tolerated. First, the governor Don Pedro de Zapata came, and with him the magistrates. 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