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. 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. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. He obtained his first degrees at the University of Barcelona. In addition, the man of God found time to organize a talented black choir. They were sinners in need of repentance and divine mercy. Yes, I suppose it was. Nothing could be done to keep them away. 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. Until death.. They saw and they believed. 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. He and his wife Rhea (married in 2009) have four children: Ella, 19, Michael, 16, Brendan, 14, and Grace, 13. Your captains and mates must neither have dainty fingers nor dainty noses,few men are fit for these voyages but them that are bred up to it. Clavers reputation for enduring the unendurable prompted many a curious admire to accompany him on his visitations to see for themselves if what they had heard of him was true. 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. Sometimes the Mother of God herself appeared to certain of the infidels to rebuke them for not listening to Father Claver. That is why Saint Peter Claver traveled such a lonely road. Creative Commons Attribution - Share Alike License. He died in 1654. Many a despairing man who had been confined to bed due to the physical consequences of an irregular life would find the supernatural peace through the encouragement and charity of good Father Peter. Source: "Saint a Day" "St. Peter Claver (1581 A. D. - 1654 A. D.): by temperament, Father Peter Claver was shy. Sometimes he would have to yield to nature and collapse. Surely this man deserved some consideration, some appreciation for all he had done in Gods service. 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. The saint spent every day in the confessional from sunrise until twelve noon. They provided no religious instruction or ministration for their slaves, no alleviation of their physical condition, so that the sacrament of baptism became to the slaves, unfortunately, a sign and symbol of their oppression and wretchedness instead of their salvation. 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. 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. Under the chaplaincy of this unique man, whose astounding charity to the slaves had been talked of even behind cell walls, the prisons were transformed into virtual monasteries. 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. And for two months they had heard nothing but abusive speech. Lord, I love thee much, much, much.. Yet he seemed destined to drink the chalice of Christs Passion to the bitter end. That; they had been brought across the ocean to be freed from their slavery to the devil, and to learn the way to everlasting happiness. . After three years, the time had come for Rodriguez to speak more clearly to Claver in regard to his vocation, as the Divine Master had done with His Apostles after His three years with them. So zealous did he become after his conversion that he never ceased exhorting his ex co-religionist to enter the Catholic Church- outside of which, he told them no salvation could be hoped for. In due time the entire group of the imprisoned reformers followed the example of their spiritual leader and entered the Catholic Church with tremendous enthusiasm. 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. The Africans, themselves, profited by the use of slave labor; the Mohammedans made a religion of it; the Egyptian built their civilization by it; the Greek philosophers were left free to leisurely contemplate reality on account of it; the Romans conquered and disciplined the world through it; the Chinese built walls to keep out foreigners by it; Germans goose-stepped to it; the Hebrews of the Old Testament, though they had laws protecting slaves, profited by it; and the One-Worlders of our day would like to revive it, as they have been attempting to do on a world scale by their monetary power. If ever there was an ugly stain upon the birth of a nation, it was the stigma of the slave trade in the foundation of the Americas. The walls of Cartagena silently echoed the solemn news as it was piously whispered in every corner, The Saint is dying! He was born in 1580 into a prosperous farming family in the Spanish village of Verdu, Catalua. And the saint prayed hard. St. 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 most illustrious of his many conversions was that of an English prelate and his Protestant confreres. unknown artist. 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. It was now 1654. Oddly enough, these men whom Claver used as interpreters were his own slaves. They thought that their blood was going to be used to dye the ships sails, and that their fat to grease her keel. He labored unceasingly for the salvation of the African slaves and the abolition of the Negro slave trade, and the love he lavished on them was something that transcended the natural order. This sacred and historical shrine is the site of the only Vatican authenticated miracle in a Midwestern church. I love thee much. Two years later there was another miracle at the church, and then another, and another. The Knights of Peter Claver: St. Martin De Porres Council #297 and Ladies Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Francis Court #297 of The Archdiocese of Newark had a 3rd Degree Turnout on Sunday, August 11th, after 10:30 am Mass at Christ The King Church, Jersey City. Even Mohammedans thought him fascinating, and many found it difficult to resist his entreaties for very long. Junior Knights and Junior Daughters of KPC, Inc. Most of the major European nations dabbled in the slave trade, with Portugal paving the way, and England soon monopolizing it. St. Peter Claver's work came to an end with his death on September 8, 1654. Strecker's healing was among the miracles attributed to Claver that led to his 1888 canonization by Pope Leo XIII. The convicts had common morning and evening prayer, litanies and the daily Rosary. Peter Claver was spiritually mailed to the Cross of Jesus in Cartagena. Such demonic phenomena were not uncommon among the uncivilized races. A year later he was ordained. Into this fire we tossed aromatics. He is the patron saint of Colombia, slaves, missionary work to Africans, and seafarers. 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. As the saying goes, only love can afford to be severe. Claver would say frequently: We must speak to them with our hands before we try to speak to them with our lips. When he came upon any who were dying he baptized them and then sought out all babies born on the voyage that he might baptize them. Shortly after midnight, on the feast of Our Ladys Nativity September 8th, his face, which had the aspect of one ravished in God, suddenly took on the features of a man utterly exhausted. Most of the soldiers went so far as to voluntarily enlist in the Spanish army, or in some other way subject themselves to the Spanish crown, rather than to return to their anti-Catholic homelands. One shipload would average between five and six hundred blacks from as many as fifteen or twenty African nations or tribes. Nevertheless, the routine was degrading enough to bring death at sea every year to about five thousand Negroes, and the infamous trade went on for about two hundred years. Finally, when they appeared sufficiently prepared, we declared to them the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation and the Passion. Once more, this time most likely to test his obedience, they denied it. Thousands of times, during his forty years in the world of pain, he would take off that cloak and use it. It reminded me of the miracles attributed to Peter Claver. We have before us a most extraordinary saint- unquestionably the most extraordinary saint who ever walked this earth. Like a mother, he would press their deformed frames to his, encouraging them to endure their purgatory here so that they might cross directly to heaven at death, for paradise was so close. 36 St Peter Claver by Shining Light Dolls on desktop and mobile. What! One can hear the experts on the psychology of the underprivileged gasp- How dare he arouse guilt complexes with these victims of white racism!. That melancholic countenance was first stamped upon him when he was introduced to the real world of human misery. Brother Alonso, as the Spaniards called him, not only held the key to the college, but he also had the key to Peter Clavers heart. As the transplanted Africans struggled to comprehend the evil that had befallen them, their intrinsic spiritual natures discovered something unique in America they had not seen before a fully articulated ritual relationship with the Supreme Being, who was pictured in the book Christians called the Bible not just as Creator and Ruler, but also as the God of History, a God who lifted up and cast down nations and peoples. The experience and practice of years never accustomed him to it.. That era of conquest was bereft of strands of a moral conscience, indeed a social ethic that would have troubled to its foundations the insidious business of the slave trade. In his humility, in order to avoid the attention of the crowd, who would have swarmed about him had they seen him, he had his lame body strapped to a horse in the hopes that the animal would take him swiftly to the leprosarium through the back roads. Yesterday, May 30, 1627, on the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, numerous blacks, brought from the rivers of Africa, disembarked from a large ship. The Blessed Peter Claver was born at Verdu in Catalonia in the year 1581, of parents eminent for piety and virtue, who instilled like qualities into his infant heart from the very cradle. 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. In fact, with them it was a real point of honor not to give in to Clavers exhortations. Due to the tremendous respect everyone has for the extraordinary Jesuit, these warnings always produced the desired fruit. Then they would learn the Our Father and the Hail Mary. Prizes were given to those who learned their prayers first. 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. Alphonsus intuited the capabilities of the young scholastic and saw in him a man fit for new, arduous and neglected work up to now unattended to, namely working among blacks in bondage. The Gospel of this first Sunday of Lent presents to us Jesus in the desert, tempted by the devil (cf. Peter Claver was born in 1581 to a devout farming family in the Catalonia region of Spain. Having baptized the dying and given his first attentions to the sick, the black-robed angel of mercy gathered all the slaves together and begun to speak to them of God. He fought tirelessly against the heretics who denied the Divine Maternity of Mary and the abiding humanity of Jesus., Albany Diocese bans Latin Masses following new guidance from the Vatican, New report examines the state of priestly vocations in US, Hungary and the Holy See: Alone in Europe in Calling for Peace in Ukraine, Professor Stanisaw Grygiel, Longtime Friend of John Paul II, Dies at 89, Episode 365: Drudgery as a Means to Sanctity. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. This time he stumbled into the Jesuit residence with a body that could scarcely be recognized. The animal took him swiftly all right when, for some strange reason (some witnesses felt the horse was temporarily bewitched), the gentle horse suddenly bolted, galloping wildly through the streets. And he delighted in good music. Leo Landoll stood at the altar of God and spoke the words of consecration and for the first time Jesus Christ, body and soul became present in a small white church that had recently been a private home. Of these we had two wallets full, and we used them all up on this occasion. Their bodies were hastily thrown overboard to the sharks. The son of a Catalonian farmer, was born at Verdu, in 1581; he died on the 8th of September, 1654. Benedict XIV lashed out against it in 1741; Pius VII did the same in 1815. No Caesar, proudly entering the gates of Rome, could have looked more glorious than this exuberant saint, as he triumphantly marched with his Negroes down the main avenue of Cartagena. 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. Claver took to the country missions in the spring. St. Peter Claver Parish St. Peter Claver Catholic Church 485 W. Fourth St. Lexington, KY 40508 859-254-0030 SPC Liturgical Art & Environment Update Updated building July 2022 Due to construction on the St. Peter Claver Church property we have addressed the following issues: 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. Boarding the slave ships as they entered the harbor, he would hurry to the revolting inferno of the hold, and offer whatever poor refreshments he could afford; he would care for the sick and dying, and instruct the slaves through Negro catechists before administering the Sacraments. 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. But many more, rank-and-file citizens would seek Father Claver out in the confessional where he had sometimes to spend fifteen hours at a stretch, reproving, advising, encouraging, and absolving. To prevent excessive dampness, someone had thought of building up a mound with a mixture of tiles and broken pieces of brick. If a baby had the misfortune to be taken with its mother, or born during the voyage, it usually died of malnutrition. Heartfelt Condolences to Fatima Sister Fr. These unscrupulous adventurers were among those forces of her majestys seamen who were also in the habit of stealing Spanish galleons, laden with Negroes, and transporting them to Englands North American colonies. 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. February 17th 1937 was a day upon which a miracle happened. There were adulterers, Jewish usurers, and occasionally a deranged spellcaster or two. 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. Falling down before him, the veteran apostle kissed his feet. In 1610, he landed at Cartagena (modern Colombia), the principle slave market of the New World, where a thousand slaves were landed every month. Catholic Online is a Project of Your Catholic Voice Foundation, a Not-for-Profit Corporation. 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. During his life he baptized and instructed in the Faith more than 300,000 negroes. His religious profession was written with his own hand and signed thus, Peter Claver, slave of the slaves, forever. That forever meant thirty more years of a grueling monotony, the accomplishments of which would have sufficed to fulfill the lives of ten apostles. St. Peter Claver was canonized in 1888. Worse still, kings encouraged rivals to crime so that they could be convicted and sold as criminals. 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. In this case, the dignitary was the governor himself, Don Jeronimo Zueso Cassola, the same man who raced to tell Father Claver the good news. At fourteen, he left home to pursue his vocation at the college in Barcelona. It was 1602 when he entered their Novitiate in Tarragona. Peter Claver crossed the seas but once, and never quitted, for the rest of his life, the country to which obedience restricted him. The methods this apostle used to restore life or health was often quite out of the ordinary. With his familiar face no longer visible in the market and byways, people soon began to forget about the man they had so short a time ago nearly worshiped. mountelizabeth.com.sg. 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. But the scanty amount of food proved a blessing to many, who, afflicted with disease, would have been consumed more rapidly if they had had a healthier diet. With their help, he was able to teach the Gospel with words that could be understood. His troops- eighteen Negro interpreters, a Jesuit brother, a pious woman or two, and usually some prominent Cartagenian official. He was an early Pioneer for Human Rites and showed. This was his main thesis: the flesh could not rebel if the flesh knew only pain. Her body began to move. 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. He also shared a video on his Instagram, which is below the Today Show interview: WATCH the Inspiring Today Show Interview below: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mark Wahlberg (@markwahlberg), Auxiliary Bishop David OConnell of Los Angeles, California, was killed on February 18th. In teaching his pupils religion he loved to use pictures. 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.. A civil rights violation? In Christianity, foremost of the apostles.His name was Simon but according to the gospels Jesus called him from his work as fisherman and gave him the name 'Cephas', the Aramaic equivalent of Greek 'Peter' (petra, 'rock').According to early tradition Peter visited Rome where he was martyred (1 Clement 5, etc. 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. His king was Philip II, and his spiritual Father in Rome was Pope Sixtus V. Misfortune hit him hard and early. Peter Claver had another side to him that cannot be overlooked. But what a retched lot was that of the poor slaves! John Asare-Dankwah ran the St Peter Claver church in New Orleans' historic Treme neighborhood from 2014 until early 2021, when a lawsuit alleging that he raped a boy on an out-of-state overnight trip years earlier prompted church officials to indefinitely suspend him from his role. Much as men are willing to forgive those, who wrong them, yet they' never . It was reckoned that there would be a loss in each cargo by death during the six or seven weeks voyage of a least a third. The slaves, the missions, the hospitals, the prisons, the confessional, over and over again, for four decades, the same monotonous routineHow long shall the ass be thus harnessed Father? the good brother has asked. In all he had eighteen. After a wearisome voyage he landed with his companions at Cartagena what is today the coast of modern day Colombia, South America. To remain a heretic, a pagan, or a bad Catholic, and live in the same city as Peter Claver, was quite an accomplishment in obduracy. Too bad todays social experts werent around in the seventeenth century to help the slaves. A galleon would contain, besides new immigrants, badly needed supplies and medicines, and of course, news and mail. Claver showed them that they were loved even more than they were abused, and that divine love must not be outraged by evil ways, by cruelty and lust. Only three times in those four years of his last tribulation did he leave the monastery. The healing occurred at St. Joseph's parish in. The doctors recognized such a miracle and it was later authenticated by the Vatican in 1887, leading to Peter Claver's canonization in 1888. 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 problem with many of the Moslems was that they were slaves, and consequently, they despised Christianity because it was the religion of their captors. St. Peter Claver had seven interpreters, one of whom spoke four African dialects. He announced to Brother Gonzales that he would die on the next festival of the Blessed Virgin. He, his wife, and daughter settled in St. Joseph's Parish in St. Louis, Missouri. For the infirm he would come out of his stuffy box and often set them on his knees so as to accommodate them more easily, and after he was through, he would invite them all for a little breakfast. 2023 Knights of Peter Claver If it were not for this work I should be a nuisance to myself and to everybody else. Answering his critics why he did not take certain precautions moving among sick people, Claver remarked: If being a saint consists in having no taste and having a strong stomach, I admit that I may be one.. 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. 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 man of God scourged himself three times nightly: before prayer, before retiring, and after rising. We are a Special Conference of the St Vincent DePaul Society serving Central Florida. In this prison there were detained slaves, who re-lived the dark pagan rituals in the hot forest nights, side by side with certain clerics who would not keep their vow of chastity. Guest: Sister Maria Philomena, M.I.C.M. 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. 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. 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. 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. Civil authorities, among his harshest critics, who had looked askance at his solicitude for mere slaves and the clergy who had called his zeal indiscrete now vied with one another to honor his memory. Once, when commended for his apostolic zeal, he replied, It ought to be so but there is nothing but self indulgence in it; it is the result of my enthusiastic and impetuous temperament. 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. But his sullen-ness and even the sadness reflected from his deep-set eyes were not the result of his excessive mortification. Our Saints upbringing carries nothing too spectacular about it. The two men conversed at length, discussing the Catholic position as opposed to the Protestant. He was as Arnold Lunn puts it, a divinitarian. The gift he gave the poor slaves was a gift infinitely more precious than sympathy, or even a miraculous cure (which he was quite often the instrument of). Fr. 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. There were times when the streets of Cartagena and other more viable settlements would flow with blood from such cruel assaults. To Claver, they were all important. With him were the merchant and some curious companions. Many of the poor Negroes, having exaggerated fears of their approaching fate, took their own lives in despair. 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. Asare-Dankwah, 62, has denied the rape accusation. 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 fleet of three galleons set sail on April 10, 1610. He most probably also desired in this to imitate his spiritual father, the humble brother porter of Palma. The fever of discovery proved, unfortunately, the beginning of the extermination of the native peoples. 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. 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.. The very sight of these adandoned lepers was enough to send chills up ones spine. Saint of the Day for Wednesday, March 1st, 2023, First Station: Jesus is condemned to death, 5 prayers you should say this Lenten Season News. Needless to say, only the brave called this fortified city home, but even their courage could not dispel the natural fear that hung heavily in the hot air behind the thick walls. Which of them had been baptized in Africa? Cartagena was hit with five major epidemics during Clavers apostleship (1615-1654). 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