To the cynical mind the trust of this extraordinary priest in the goodness of human nature must have seem nave and no doubt could he have known he would have been far more often disappointed than not. Though Father Sandoval, the founder of the slave apostolate, had only just initiated his new assistant in the care of the blacks, the veteran missioner was shortly thereafter recalled to Peru; consequently, he had to bestow the entire apostolate upon Father Claver. When he is evilly spoken of, he is dumb. Two or three times a week the saint would go succor these poor specimens of what were once healthy men and women. Africa was literally exploding in violence. Large numbers of the sick were lying on the wet ground or rather in puddles of mud. 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. St Peter Claver Prison Ministry is a faith-based mentorship program empowering the incarcerated, ex-offenders and their families obtain self-sufficiency and reduce recidivism. At the age of twenty he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Tarragona. Four years is a long time to be laid up. Nor was the saint known to into ecstasies at the altar. Shelter those, dear Lord, who bear my company from the evils of fire and all calamity.Teach me to use my car for others need; Nor miss through love of undue speed. No, the saint was moved by nothing less than the love for Christ whom he saw reflected in the least of his brethren. This extraordinary apostle was attracted to the beautiful things of Gods creation, like anyone else. Of these we had two wallets full, and we used them all up on this occasion. By far the greatest damage the devil suffered from Father Claver was in the confessional, though some of us may cringe when we consider his methods of extracting vice. To prevent excessive dampness, someone had thought of building up a mound with a mixture of tiles and broken pieces of brick. Clasping his feet in their hands, they bade him farewell amid a profusion of sighs and tears. 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. Then he would go unperturbed into a more remote area in order to console the more pathetic cases. Finally, before departing, he sprinkled them with perfume. Though the Inquisition had also been in operation since 1610 in Cartagena, that office dealt in the main with crimes against religion, such as blasphemy, witchcraft (and their was and still is plenty of it in the West Indies), and the preaching of heresy. Peter Claver Catholic Church was born. At that moment. Spain brought a cease to trafficking in slaves in 1850. Once for the Negroes, when having heard of the arrival of a slave ship laden with blacks from a notoriously barbaric area, he had himself carried in a litter to the dock to greet them. Top SEO sites provided "Novena to god the father" keyword . St. Peter Claver became the faithful servant of slaves. So filthy did the cloak become that, in a days labor, it would have to be washed seven times. FOR THE FEAST DAY OF ST. PETER CLAVER. In all this he found more opportunity to suffer. On Ash Wednesday, which begins the 40 day period of lent, a time of prayer and fasting, Wahlberg encouraged viewers to take up a lenten penance. It would be a tangent too labor-some for the continuity of this article to demonstrate at any length how forcefully and wisely the Catholic Church has handled the slavery problem throughout its history. And for the longest time no one but God and the saints of heaven knew what the holy man was going through. 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 resident Jesuits, despite the utter poverty of their quarters, gave their newly arrived brothers a hearty welcome, and immediately afterwards Claver was summoned up the Magdalena River to the capital city of Santa Fe de Bogota to finish his theology. As the slaves were at length allotted and sent off to the mines and plantations, Claver could only appear to them for the last time with renewed earnestness, for he would be able to keep in touch with only very few of them. All they could muster was to protest and devote themselves to individual ministrations, physical, spiritual and material, to the tens of thousands of suffering human beings brought to these shores. It didnt come quickly. The problem with many of the Moslems was that they were slaves, and consequently, they despised Christianity because it was the religion of their captors. These marks of distinction were a legitimate incentive to the others to embrace their benefactors religion, which oddly enough was also the religion of their oppressors.With the sick, Father Claver had no care for precautionary measures of hygiene for himself. Lima in Peru had five- Saint Rose, Saint Francis Solano, Saint Martin de Porres, Saint Turibius, and Saint John Massias. He was sent to study at the University of Barcelona. St. Peter Claver Peter was born of a distinguished family in Catalonia, Spain in 1581. Settling the New World and stealing from that New World brought with it the necessity of cheap labor, human labor . In the history of God's Saints we read of heroic souls giving themselves as slaves in exchange for Christian captives. We laid aside our cloaks, therefore, and brought from a warehouse whatever was handy to build a platform. Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution - Share Alike License. A St. Peter Claver Catholic Church member burns incense as a part of the church's first Senor de Los Milagros (Lord of Miracles) celebration procession in Tyler on streets near the church. This steady concourse lasted until nightfall when the Fathers insisted on sending the people away and closing the doors. In the past, when he came home from such missions, he was usually so reduced physically that he looked like a walking skeleton. 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. September 9 marked the Feast of St. Peter Claver, a Jesuit priest who ministered to African slaves in Colombia in the 17th century. But since his parents had dedicated Peter at birth to the ecclesiastical state, this tragedy only strengthened the youths conviction that he must not live for this world. History: The son of a Catalonian farmer, was born at Verdu, in 1581. Strangely enough, when the man saw the saint he called out to him, Oh my Father! They were sinners in need of repentance and divine mercy. History has since criticized that era for its lack of certain principles of human rights and human dignity. Until death! the good father quietly responded. | Prioress: Sister Marie Thrse, M.I.C.M. The magnificent Main Altar is the result of a pledge made by grateful parishioners who made a promise to St. Joseph. 2 Now a man crippled from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. v. 16). Cannot charity traverse seas already opened by cupidity?. 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. This extreme wealth passing in and out of the port was what attracted the avaricious entrepreneurs to settle there. Saint Melania, a wealthy Roman matron, freed her 8,000 slaves at once. Falling down before him, the veteran apostle kissed his feet. Ad Rem A Fortnightly Email Message from the Prior, Saint David is the patron of Wales, where thousands and thousands of noble Catholics have lived and where many saints have been given to God., He was a Frenchman and the son of a nobleman. He became a bishop and instituted a feast in honor of Our Ladys Immaculate Conception., He was the forty-eighth Pope. They requested that the Jesuits transfer his body to the church where the populace could see him for the last time and properly venerate his remains. Though it was Gods will for our saint to be forgotten before he left this life, it was also His will that in death His humble servant be exalted. Extra ecclesiam nulla salus (outside the Church there is no salvation). They needed a voice to ease their burden, not to make it heavier with bitterness and anger. Every major feastday he would get together the great city band of Cartagena, and off they would go to perform for the lepers. They lay there together, in fear, like sardines, naked and bleeding in the cold damp of winter or the excruciating heat of summer, with but one daily feeding of corn and water to sustain them. An abominable situation indeed, from the black side, no less than from the white. The son of a Catalonian farmer, was born at Verdu, in 1581; he died 8 September, 1654. Somehow Claver managed to get out of bed and don a cassock, and the next minute his frail and bent figure, with cane in hand, shuffled up to his successor. We asked them to make an act of contrition and to manifest their detestation of their sins. There was nothing artificial about Peter Claver. Saint Paul, who never actually condemned slavery as such, nevertheless elevated the slave as equal in Gods eyes to the free, thereby inflicting slavery with a mortal wound. The gruesome list goes on and on: coarse horsehair cords tied around his toes, arms, and legs; sharp pointed crosses, strapped by more coarse rope around his chest and back; a sharp studded girdle about his lions and thighs. Another saint whom he had known at school in Majorca, Saint Alphonsus Rodriguez, revealed his road in life to him. He also exercised an apostolate among the traders, the sailors and others whom he found in this hospital, Claver also brought about the conversion of an Anglican dignitary, represented to be an archdeacon of London, whom he met when visiting prisoners-of-war on a ship in the harbor. The saint refused to rest until he had thoroughly expurgated these unholy interferences which, among the slaves, were always connected with the sin of drunkenness. He, his wife, and daughter settled in St. Joseph's Parish in St. Louis, Missouri. Kind and patient to all, for some of his penitents he prescribed the remedy of hairshirts and scourges. In the year 1650, Father Claver went to preach the Churchs jubilee year among the Africans working in the mines and plantations along the coast, but sickness attacked his weakened body, and he was recalled to the residence at Cartagena. Here he would find them some kind of shelter and nurse them, bringing them food and medicine. But when he spoke to them he spoke exactly of what they would expect a priest to speak about: God, heaven and hell. The good governor also told the fathers that the city was going to defray the cost of the obsequies by which the people of Cartagena planned to honor their most distinguished citizen. Peter Claver had another side to him that cannot be overlooked. There never was slavery more inhuman, more murderous and more complete over the souls as well as the bodies of its victims than what we have seen in our century in those countries swallowed up by the Communists. Blacks were forced here, captured, bartered, and purchased from territories of the west coast of Africa what is today the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Ghana, Benin and other places deeper in the continent stretching as far as the Congo. Until death, he was politely told. Not a few fellow slaves were converted from Islam by the beautiful liturgical services and heavenly hymns that were sung at the funeral of a baptized Negro. 36 St Peter Claver by Shining Light Dolls published on 2019-09-08T23:42:20Z. Peter Claver reached stature as a saint of God having watched closely a leader in this work, Father Alfonso de Sandoval, a great Jesuit missionary who spent forty years in the service of the slaves, and after working under him, Peter Claver, having reached a spiritual pinnacle in his own self-understanding, declared himself the slave of the Negroes forever. Although, by nature shy and lacking to degree self confidence, Claver threw himself into the work and pursued it with enthusiasm, method and organization. There are ideologic forces there seemingly unredeemable by the Gospel. The healing occurred at St. Joseph's parish in. During prayer at night he added a crown of thorns and a rope tied around his neck in imitation of his beloved Savior bound and led to Pilate. St. Peter Claver (1580-1654) was a Spanish Jesuit missionary to Latin America. One he always made use of was a very amateurish, one might even respectfully say ugly, representation of the Judgment. He is the Patron Saint of: *Slaves, *the Republic of Columbia, *the Ministry to African Americans * and Sea-Farers. A rich merchant once called him to his house to give the sacraments to a dying Negro who was one mass of ulcers. Such demonic phenomena were not uncommon among the uncivilized races. This was his main thesis: the flesh could not rebel if the flesh knew only pain. Peter, St. Your sufferings are great, echoed the black-robed preacher, but not as great as you deserve. You are better off being a slave in America than a chief in Africa, he told them. They discovered a God, a gentle Savior, and a theology of history, that could help make sense of their enslavement. His feast day is celebrated on September 9th. Claver went to the door of the room in which the man was quarantined. His order had already achieved amazing success in its missions, its schools, and in its ability to produce saints. Sometimes he would have to yield to nature and collapse. It reached its climax in a pilgrimage to the beloved Spanish shrine of the Black Virgin of Montserrat. In 1602 he entered the Society of Jesus. He joined the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), and after his novitiate in Taragona was sent to the college of . In a short while, when these poor creatures were fattened up a little and washed, they would be auctioned off in the market place and sometimes end up far away. 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. 14-141). To care for the slaves he must totally subject his own flesh and subdue it. All the six occupants were from Bongaigaon diocese and were killed after a truck rammed into it at Sumer, Ri Bhoi, on Sunday evening. slavery is gone but many of its effects remain; remain not only on the Blacks but also on the Whites. Come to me, my Father! Claver, like the Good Shepherd, ran to embrace him, and, for a time, tears choked any words either tried to utter. Sometimes, Claver would spend almost the entire day in the great square of the city, where the four principal streets met, preaching to all who would stop to listen. But his sullen-ness and even the sadness reflected from his deep-set eyes were not the result of his excessive mortification. He was sent there principally to recover his health, which had been seriously affected by the damp heat of Bogota; and also that his presence there might be an inspiration to the young novices, much as Rodriguez had been at Majorca. He made use of the strangest instruments, such as bananas, and dates- the famous dates of Peter Claver,- whose miraculous power was heard as far away as Rome, and once even an ordinary soaked sponge. He never came down from it. In 1853 Ignatius Strecker had brought his family from Germany to the United States, and in 1861 he was working at St. Louis in a soap factory. Ignatius Strecker came to America from Germany in 1853. With a precision-made-second-nature-through-routine, the good father gathered together his little army with their provisions and set out to battle. He cured the sick almost routinely and there were times when he even raised the dead. His fellow Jesuits, having been reduced to an extreme poverty, were so busy with their individual responsibilities that days would pass without anyone even visiting him. A witness testified to the Office of Inquisition in Cartagena that, on one occasion, he had seen several Negroes floating naked around the ceiling in a house at night after dabbling in this witchcraft. There were times when the streets of Cartagena and other more viable settlements would flow with blood from such cruel assaults. He was no egotistic eccentric who delighted in doing daring things for the sake of being unique! On September sixth, two Negroes carried Father Claver to the chapel where he received Holy Communion with the devotion of a seraph. These heroic acts of sublime love for his neighbor were by no means natural to Claver. And in particular, he applied himself by word and prayer to regain the abandoned priests to a meaningful and holy life. Nor can the Africans themselves escape the blame. His gift to them was eternal life through Faith in a God who suffered like them and on account of them, a God who was crucified. When he was only thirteen, his mother Ana died, and within the same month his twenty-year-old brother followed her to the grave. "No, no. One might say that Saint Alphonsus Rodriguez has at that moment planted his own soul into Saint Peter Claver. ); but the claim that he was its bishop is an anachronism. He would never let it go beyond a half-hour because he felt that a lengthy Mass in the tropical heat would stifle devotion rather than kindle it. The startled priest, having been told the identity of the man kneeling before him, immediately lifted Father Claver up and dropping to his knees he likewise kissed the reverend feet of his predecessor with great emotion and confusion. Jn 17:11). The Negroes were especially affected; Peter Claver had been a real father to them. He obtained his first degrees at the University of Barcelona. There they stood looking at a man they knew so well, whose holiness, ecstasies, and extraordinary virtues had so inspired them, and yet perhaps not a few accused themselves of not having profited enough by his presence among them. When the saint received his commission to pack his things, he burst into tears and kissed the document as if it were the most precious relic. Instantly his conscience accused him, and ashamed of his cowardice, he retired to a corner of the room and delivered himself a brutal scourging, confessing all the while his fault in not loving enough one who was redeemed by the Precious Blood of Christ. How beautifully did his words echo on their souls as he spoke to them of the infinite value of their cross if only they should bear it with joy and patience. In fact, he would refuse to allow the good Brother Nicholas to dress him when he offered to do so, but asked rather for his nurse. However, witnesses testified that, despite the filth, the miraculous fabric always smelled fresh and clean. When he viewed their deplorable condition and saw the fear in their faces, he broke down and cried. Claver was buried in the floor off the sacristy of the chapel of the Jesuit residence. But four long years would be needed before the consuming affliction would liberate him forever. Finally, when they appeared sufficiently prepared, we declared to them the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation and the Passion. He informed his father of his intention to join the Society. The slave of the slaves believed in simplicity. St Peter Claver College. 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. He never bothered philosophizing about the evils of a system, while planting class hatred and bitterness, as the Socialists of our day do. He gulped his final breath of air lying in the arms of his confessor. St Peter Claver worked for decades to help enslaved people. The Gospel thus presents us the three divine Persons joined in love. The pastor of St Peter Claver in New Orleans, who has been on leave since the revelation of an abuse allegation in January, has responded with a lawsuit of his own. There was hardly a Pope who had to face the problem when it surfaced after about a thousand-year dormation, that did not condemn it. Soon it was clear- no cause for alarm- it was only a slave ship. Cartagena was a central stopping point for this inhuman traffic. What sort of a man must I be, that I cannot do a little good without causing so much confusion? Claver would ask. T he second miracle took place in St. Louis. It was not an uncommon thing to see a man who had been a slave give Holy Communion to one who had been his master. Claver came from an ethic of religious consecration where missionaries dared death, hardship, sickness and every conceivable challenge to bring the gospel to foreign lands. 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. He performed no important negotiations, established or reformed no religious order, made no brilliant changes of places or circumstances. Pages could be written about the glorious role ex-slaves played in the history of the Church- and not only ex-slaves, but actual slaves, like Saint Felicitas, who is mentioned in the Canon of every Mass along with her holy mistress, Saint Perpetua, whom she refused to be separated from, even in death. The devil, instead, does the opposite: he enters the scene to divide Jesus from the Father and to distra. The medal had the Holy Name of Jesus on one side and of Mary on the other. Traveling in these areas Father Claver habitually refused as much as possible the hospitality of the planters and owners and instead lodged in the quarters of the slaves checking on conditions and speaking to their owners and masters, advocating for the slaves. 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