He never bothered philosophizing about the evils of a system, while planting class hatred and bitterness, as the Socialists of our day do. Peter obeyed, and in 1610 landed at Cartagena, where for forty-four years he was the Apostle of the negro slaves. Claver was a man who knew pain and knew its value. To all he brought the comforts of the sacramental religion. You can add to these the faded and worn cloak of Saint Peter Claver. This time he stumbled into the Jesuit residence with a body that could scarcely be recognized. 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. After a difficult voyage of some months, the ships landed at the New Granadan port of Cartagena, just below Panama, in the Gulf of Darien. His labors in the confessional for the holy season would increase threefold. Others were lured like animals into anchored galleons by novel gadgets, bells, magnets, beads, and such gimmicks, only to see the huge vessels glide away from shore. Sinners were afraid to walk the streets lest they should encounter the saint in the market place, for they knew he had the gift of reading souls. Catholic Online is a Project of Your Catholic Voice Foundation, a Not-for-Profit Corporation. . The rumor of his approaching death spread around the city like wildfire, everyone suddenly remembered the saintly priest again, and numbers came to kiss his hands before it was too late; his room was stripped of everything that could be carried off as relics. Saint Christopher's Protection Prayer Dear Saint Christopher, protect me today in all my travels along the road's way. The medal had the Holy Name of Jesus on one side and of Mary on the other. There he graduated with distinction and after receiving the minor orders of the Church, determined to offer himself to the Society of Jesus (SJ) or popularly known as, the Jesuit Order. Copyright 2004-2020 Saint Benedict Center, Richmond, New Hampshire. Before pouring the cleansing water, he would ask them three times in a loud voice if they wanted to become Christians. Some cases involved actual diabolic manifestations. THE Apostolate of St. Peter Claver is unique. 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. One Dutchman was particularly hard, and assaulted Father Claver verbally every time he saw him, shouting in his fury that the priest would never bewitch him as he did the others. The very day that the Holy Virgin, to whom he was so tenderly devoted, entered time, the slave of Mary and of the Negroes entered eternity. 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. In 1537, when the enslaving of the Indians was still more common than that of the blacks, this Pontiff thundered out in indignation. Amen. The joy in their eyes as they looked at us was something to see. Though it must be said that more than a few of these wretches were won over by the example of Father Claver and unburdened their tormented consciences to him. In college, Claver met Alphonsus Rodriguez who was a porter at the college and that meeting was to set the direction of Peter Clavers life thereafter. At fourteen, he left home to pursue his vocation at the college in Barcelona. Too bad todays social experts werent around in the seventeenth century to help the slaves. Pope Leo XIII sent a golden coffin for his remains along with a pipe organ which sits in the choir loft of the Church to this day. In the summer of 1654, Father Diego Ramirez-Farina arrived in Cartagena from Spain with a commission from the king to work among the Negroes. 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. 36 St Peter Claver by Shining Light Dolls published on 2019-09-08T23:42:20Z. The following incident illustrates the struggle of the saint to overcome nature. That entire day our young hero was unable to shake off the experience and walked about as if he were not on earth. Due to the tremendous respect everyone has for the extraordinary Jesuit, these warnings always produced the desired fruit. One day he happened to strike his breast against an angular piece of iron. But, if some disadvantaged Negro in now in heaven, because this tyrannical Father Claver made an occasion of sin less available to him, and, on the other hand, some Spaniard is burning forever in hell because luring near occasions were for him more accessible, you be the judge who was the more fortunate. The Mass was part of a nationwide Day of Fasting and Prayer called for by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to acknowledge the sin of racism and to seek racial justice and healing. In that way we covered a space to which we at last transferred the sick, by forcing a passage through bands of slaves. The Reformed churchmen looked on in a kind of curious awe as they watched the majesty of a ceremony they had heard so reviled. The Church has always had a difficult time influencing the worlds of business and commerce. Then we sat, or rather knelt beside them and bathed their faces and bodies with wine. The entire house, having been informed of Father Clavers condition, came silently into the infirmary. The St. Peter Claver Place Apartments project will receive a $4 million rebate of the taxes generated by the project in yearly installments at a rate of 95% until the $4 million rebate is satisfied. St. Peter Claver became the faithful servant of slaves. And in fact, convinced as they were that they had been brought here to be eaten, any other language would have proved utterly useless. As a dressing for the wounds of the whipping, he wore over them a soothing full-length hairshirt. 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. From 1198 to 1787 the former redeemed, from the Moors. 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. Federal Tax Identification Number: 81-0596847. 36 St Peter Claver by Shining Light Dolls on desktop and mobile. Besides visiting the slave huts, the zealous father had other apostolates that he lovingly attended to: the hospital of St. Sebastian, the leprosarium of St Lazarus, and the prisons. There were times when he even raised the dead with it. Little is known of his early years. At that moment. Meanwhile, a man of importance ran through the streets, totally oblivious to human respect, and knocked forcefully at a door. 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.. Church of Saint Peter Claver is located in West Hartford Connecticut The tortured body of Father Claver, which the saint never ceased to submit to the hairshirt and discipline, could barely contain the ghost. 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. St. Peter Claver. People who were so horribly afflicted that they were actually shunned by their fellow lepers. The dignity of man as redeemed and one with Christ, indeed a member of His Mystical Body, tended to stigmatize the institution as unworthy of a Christian. Here in the solitude of his confinement he suffered not only physically but also mentally. The son of a Catalonian farmer, was born at Verdu, in 1581; he died on the 8th of September, 1654. Thank you. In fact, her body was being prepared for the funeral shroud. Furthermore, he did not lose sight of his converts when they left the ships, but followed them to the plantations to which they were sent, encouraged them to live as Christians, and prevailed on their masters to treat them humanely. 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. Overcome with nausea, the admiring priest had to leave the room, but despite his own weakness, he never ceased praising the heroic virtue of Claver, publicizing it even in Rome. 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. Claver made use of pictures, in accordance with standard catechetical pedagogy of the time, showing our Lord suffering on the cross for them; above all did he try to instill in them some degree of self respect, to give them at least some idea that as redeemed human beings they had dignity and worth, even if as slaves they were outcast and despised. A rich merchant once called him to his house to give the sacraments to a dying Negro who was one mass of ulcers. St. Peter Claver. 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. unknown artist. The first principle in his instructions to his helpers was centered in the corporal works of mercy. At the age of twenty he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Tarragona. Nor was the saint known to into ecstasies at the altar. 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. But what a retched lot was that of the poor slaves! 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. 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. The saint suddenly startled everyone by crying out her name: Agustina, Agustina, while sprinkling her with holy water. Miracles of St. Peter Claver Ignatius Strecker came to America from Germany in 1853. 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. For two months, the slaves endured a fate worse than that of animals- hanging onto a life that seemed not worth the effort to preserve it- half dead, half insane, and reeking in the filth of their dysentery, vomit, and running ulcerous wounds. Here he met Saint Alphonsus Rodriguez, the man who was to thoroughly inspire him and send him on his lifes mission. 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. The crude picture graphically portrayed the Crucified Christ with His Precious Blood pouring from His Wounds into a basin. Pius IX, who beatified Peter Claver, branded the slave trade supreme villainy. The most vociferous of all was Pope Paul III. While he preached, he suffered. What sort of a man must I be, that I cannot do a little good without causing so much confusion? Claver would ask. Absentee Line: (07) 3810 5950 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. Despite all Clavers exhorting, the archdeacon would only respond by requesting the prayers of the priest, and with many signs of mutual affection the two parted company. Was being prepared for the extraordinary Jesuit, these warnings always produced the desired.... A door was something to see a kind of curious awe as they watched the of. 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