This time he stumbled into the Jesuit residence with a body that could scarcely be recognized. He had a steady confidence that God would care for them and, not his least worry were the slave owners whom he did not deem beyond the mercy of God. Two years later there was another miracle at the church, and then another, and another. 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. There were fugitives of all sorts, despairing failures of fortune, pirates, bigamists who had abandoned wife and home, money-hungry merchants, retired soldiers, heretics, Mohammedans, all varieties of Europeans, Jews, Greeks, and of course, native Indians, mestizos, mulattos, and last and saddest of all, the black slaves. Both these hospitals Claver visited each week, waiting on the patients in their material needs and bringing hardened sinners to penitence. We ask this through Our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. 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. One of his linguistic gems was Calepino, a veritable genius, who spoke eleven different African dialects. He was born in 1580 in a little town of Spain called Verdu in the diocese of Solfona and he was baptized Peter. Carrying two baskets of oranges, lemons, sweet biscuits, and I know not what else, we hurried toward them. And if his love for her was great, her was no less for him. The angel said, This one is for thy disciple, Claver; it is the recompense of his virtues and of the great number of souls he will gain to God in the West Indies.. 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. 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. The bishop's housekeeper's husband, Carlos Medina, a 61-year-old man arrested by Los Angeles County Sheriff deputies as the prime suspect in the murder. He embraced lepers, kissed cancerous lesions, sucked out poison from running ulcers, washed the unclean and dined in their unsightly hovels, nor did he refrain even from eating food some despairing suicidals had rejected from their own mouths, in his determination to gain their confidence. Africa was literally exploding in violence. So severe were the lashings that the neighbors shuddered when they heard the sound of them in the still of the night air. Claver was less successful in his efforts to make converts among the Muslims who came to Cartagena to do business, but he managed to bring a number of Moors and Turks to the faith, though one held out for thirty years before succumbing, and even then a vision of our Lady was required to convince him. For the Christian women he had dresses. Yet he seemed destined to drink the chalice of Christs Passion to the bitter end. They were sinners in need of repentance and divine mercy. 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. He became a bishop and instituted a feast in honor of Our Ladys Immaculate Conception., He was the forty-eighth Pope. Claver enlisted bands of assistants, cajoling these people whether by money, goods or services, and as soon as a slave ship entered the port Claver dropped everything and went to wait on its living freight. Baptism was received with such an emotion of joy as to move the hardest heart. When there was time and opportunity he took the same trouble to teach them how properly to use the sacrament of penance and in one year is said to have heard the confessions of more than five thousand. Like an angel of mercy, the black-robed friar would arrive at the colony with the gifts that he had begged in the market place: oranges, bananas, preserves, sweet cakes, and soothing medicines. Sept. 9: ST. PETER CLAVER, PRIEST. The fact that Father Claver was able to open the kingdom of heaven to over three hundred thousand Negroes was due in no small degree to the help of his African co-workers. Amen Give it the least bit of pampering and it will want more and more. Father Claver was already known for strong discipline of his body. His hands and clothing were instantly covered with infectious filth. Claver did all he could to provide for the observance of these laws, and every spring after Easter he would make a tour of those plantations nearer Cartagena in order to see how his Africans were fairing under their masters. Due to the tremendous respect everyone has for the extraordinary Jesuit, these warnings always produced the desired fruit. Absentee Line: (07) 3810 5950 Photo by Sid Hastings Sid Hastings A relic of St. Peter Claver in a. Through his prayer help us to see the true dignity of the human family, all children of one father and to spend ourselves for their salvation. He prayed, slept, walked, labored, and preached in them for forty long years. This extreme wealth passing in and out of the port was what attracted the avaricious entrepreneurs to settle there. That is why Saint Peter Claver traveled such a lonely road. 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. Leader: Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: All: as it was in the beginning, is now . Was Performed at the Shrine of St. Joseph in St. Louis, MO. St. Peter Claver (1580-1654) was a Jesuit who, due to his life and work, became the patron saint of slaves, Colombia and African Americans. The U.S. bishops have invited Catholics to observe the day with fasting and prayer for an end to racism in the United States. The masters complained that he wasted the slaves time with his preaching, praying and hymn-singing. Here he would find them some kind of shelter and nurse them, bringing them food and medicine. 36 St Peter Claver by Shining Light Dolls published on 2019-09-08T23:42:20Z. There was another sail that was a dreaded sight for a Cartagenian, a sail that used to make Father Sandoval, Clavers instructor in the science of charity, tremble and break out in a cold sweat- the sail of the slave ship! It officially closed in. In addition, African chiefs easily bartered away to the white traders their criminals, those captured in war, the mentally unstable, and the sick and other social misfits. Peter Claver was spiritually mailed to the Cross of Jesus in Cartagena. The Story of Saint Peter Claver, Apostle of Slaves A disciple of Saint Alphonse Rodriguez, Peter Claver became a slave of the slaves in order to take them to heaven. Strangely enough, when the man saw the saint he called out to him, Oh my Father! But the conclusion cannot be avoided that only the worst of the Spanish masters can be compared with, say, the English slave-owners of Jamaica in the 17th to 18th centuries, whose physical cruelty was no less than fiendish and diabolical by report. Father Claver defied civil authorities who treated the Africans like animals: he went into the pens with . 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. (Fakhri B. Maluf, Ph.D.), RIP. Benedict XIV lashed out against it in 1741; Pius VII did the same in 1815. A Catholic priest who led one of New Orleans' best-known inner-city churches until being accused of sexually molesting a child has been reported to federal authorities for possible financial crimes. But it would be inaccurate to label Father Claver as some kind of humanitarian. What the good priest restored in these unloved and abused people was inestimable it was their sacred dignity, their divine royalty, as adopted brothers of Christ the King.Nor could Claver forget the Negroes one they were sent away from Cartagena. The missionaries expenses were paid for by the Catholic King, Philip III, who had requested from all his provinces at least one priest to be sent to the recently established kingdom of New Granada (Colombia) across the ocean. A handsome supply of which was hung upon the back if his confessional; for others that the saint felt had enough of a penance to bear (the crippled, the lame, the aged, the destitute), he had more pleasant gifts: Rosary beads, or fruits, sweets, and similar delicacies. And though death should have come much sooner than it did for a man who had trodden on danger as one would on rose petals, it finally began to move on him mercilessly. On that day Fr. When this fact was safely determined, the Christians were separated from the pagans, and they received a Rosary and a medal to be put around their necks. Our Saints upbringing carries nothing too spectacular about it. The fleet of three galleons set sail on April 10, 1610. Meanwhile, a man of importance ran through the streets, totally oblivious to human respect, and knocked forcefully at a door. From a letter written by Peter Claver, priest, to his superiors, written in the Spanish language, 31 May, 1627. epist. In the hospital of Saint Sebastian Claver was also able to convert back to the Faith many Dutchmen who had been badly wounded in battle. The beauty of the world; that thus I may with joy and courtesy go on my way. So also, must Gods servant be ut iumentum factus sum apud te.. An epidemic had spread again, and the saint began to feel its bite in his own flesh as he returned from a mission to his slaves in one of the outlying villages. The Mohammedans, however, cost the saint much more effort to win to the true religion. The Saint is dying! Suddenly, the sad reality dawned on the multitude, who awakened as from a trance, and they all, black and white, rich and poor, made their way to the Jesuit house. Heartfelt thanks for your prayers for our daughter during her recent serious illness. St. Peter Claver was canonized in 1888 by Leo XIII, along with Alphonsus Rodriguez. The Africans and Indians arranged for a Mass of their own to which the Spanish authorities were invited; the church was ablaze with lights, a special choir sang and an oration was delivered by the treasurer of the church of Popayan, where the diaries say of the speaker no other preacher was more diffuse on the virtues, holiness, heroism and stupendous miracles of Father Claver.. The Apostle of Cartagena worse a serious face. Sometimes the Mother of God herself appeared to certain of the infidels to rebuke them for not listening to Father Claver. Then there were the black agents who, under the pay of whites, scoured the coasts with products to sell, often unsheathing concealed weapons in order to take the unsuspecting victims into captivity by force. Three . The saint spent one more year in the Novitiate at Tunga, high in the mountains of Colombia. Saint Melania, a wealthy Roman matron, freed her 8,000 slaves at once. Only three times in those four years of his last tribulation did he leave the monastery. Play over 320 million tracks for free on SoundCloud. . Then Jesus himself will say that he came into the world to make us, too, partake in the unity between him and the Father (cf. Claver went to the door of the room in which the man was quarantined. Near the confessional he also had holy books with pictures of the Passion, which he insisted that all the people ponder before they confessed. The magnificent Main Altar is the result of a pledge made by grateful parishioners who made a promise to St. Joseph. But the criminals came from all over. The soil of Clavers soul was fertile and moist. Meanwhile some of his close friends would prepare a splendid repast of the best foods and delicacies, and while the orchestra performed, the jubilant lepers devoured a sumptuous banquet. Seddity women complained that after the Africans had been to Mass it was impossible to enter the church for their bodily odor left behind the slaves, understandably, did not have exactly perfumed waters to bathe in daily. He kept a strict account of each and every slave he baptized. 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. While studying philosophy at Majorca, the young religious was influenced by St. Alphonsus Rodriguez to go to the Indies and save "millions of perishing souls.". 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. In all this he found more opportunity to suffer. Let us see, then, from whom he wants to divide him, and how he tempts him. In fact, he was the first Jesuit ordained in Cartagena. African Americans have always been intrigued by individuals of white skin, missionaries, clergyman and religious who appeared to rise above the routine racial biases of men and served us unabashedly, unashamedly and with sacrificial charity in the name of Christ, some of whom died martyrs death while moving among us. And when the slaves misbehaved Father Claver was always blamed. M.J.K. Africans at that time were abused because they were backward and exploitable, not because they were black. The avaricious smiled, the humane shuddered and walked away, and the curious were glad to have new opportunity to do what they do. Agustinus Seran, SVD - Pastor 1203 North Nebraska Ave., Tampa, FL 33602 Office Hours: Monday - Thursday, 9:00 am - 3:00 pm Mass Times Weekend Masses: Saturday Vigil - 4:00 pm Sunday Morning - 10:00 am *Haitian Creole Mass - 1:00 pm Daily Masses Wednesday - 9:00 am Friday - 8:00 am Confession Schedule From whom does the devil want to divide Jesus? The very sight of these adandoned lepers was enough to send chills up ones spine. Every major feastday he would get together the great city band of Cartagena, and off they would go to perform for the lepers. This was his main thesis: the flesh could not rebel if the flesh knew only pain. Pleased by the courtesy of the Catholic priest, the archdeacon asked him in Latin for a private interview. He would also use pictures in his teaching, primarily images of the crucified Christ. Late in 1861, a sharp piece of iron bruised his chest, resulting in . Take a tour of the Shrine of St. Joseph in St. Louis.Learn More, Receive the sacrament of marriage at St. Joseph.Learn More, See opening hours and get directions.Learn More, 2023 Shrine of St. Joseph | 1220 North 11th Street, St. Louis, Missouri 63106 | info@shrineofstjoseph.org | (314) 231-9407. His austerities, which will be described later, would make even holy Job shudder. A Sister of St. Peter Claver. Having finished his first Novitiate, Claver was sent to study philosophy on the College of Montesion (Mount Sion) in the city of Palma on the island of Majorca. He is the Patron Saint of: *Slaves, *the Republic of Columbia, *the Ministry to African Americans * and Sea-Farers. The ways of God seem hard at times. It contains many works of art. The young Claver exhibited fine qualities of mind and spirit and was destined for the Church. There were government officials, businessmen, merchants, seamen, miners, plantation owners, engineers and middlemen whose lives profited from this nefarious trade; among them Jews and Christians of various denominational traditions who rationalized this sordid enterprise. 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. A galleon would contain, besides new immigrants, badly needed supplies and medicines, and of course, news and mail. I entreat of those who read it, He said as he lay dying, to pray to God for a sinner, who having such a precious mine at his disposal, instead of drawing from it the pure gold of sanctity, has collected nothing but rust.. The dignified old man appeared, wearing a long white beard, and Claver, having been apprised of the customary signs of English protocol, saluted the prelate with much respect and offered a toast to his health. Printable Catholic Saints PDFs But it was not without the greatest difficulty, combined with some serious physical aggressiveness, that the sons of Saint Ignatius (with the help of the sons of Saint Augustine), strove to prevent the swelling crowds from literally tearing the saint apart in their efforts to procure relics. 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. 2023 Knights of Peter Claver Many of the lepers could not speak at all; they could only look at him, if they had eye, and touch the tears on his cheeks while they moaned some sort of guttural, Thank you.. He became the prophet and miracle worker of New Granada, the oracle of Cartagena, and all were convinced that often God would not have spared the city save for him. So horrible was the scene and revolting the conditions that a friend who came with Father Claver once could never face it again, and of Father de Sandoval himself it was written in one of the diary entries of his Jesuit province that, when he (Clavers friend) heard a vessel of Negroes was come into port he was at once covered with a cold sweat and death-like pallor at the recollection of the indescribable fatigue and unspeakable work on the previous like occasions. 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. Not long afterwards, at two oclock, while the assembled community invoked the names of Jesus and Mary, he sweetly surrendered his faithful soul to God. Sometimes two men chained together would be from warring tribes, and horrifying scenes of rage would take place. Finally, the happy convert related a vision he had had of the deceased Dutchman, whom the good Father had just buried, with great ceremony. The driver of the vehicle and a teacher were also killed in the incident around 3 pm. Which of them had been baptized in Africa? The ceremony was initiated with a rosary then a mass blessing of the. As one of Clavers biographers put it: In an age where man could become so subhuman, others were needed who were superhuman.. An abominable situation indeed, from the black side, no less than from the white. Protect Your Family Resources News VIDEO NOW AVAILABLE: Dismantling Systemic Racism in America February 27, 2023 The man of God scourged himself three times nightly: before prayer, before retiring, and after rising. They came from villages where agriculture, farming and nature were at the center of life, where spirits dwelt in each thing around them, and where isolation was unthinkable since the self was always in relationship to others. 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