Apostolate 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. About The Church of Peter Claver: The church that bears his name is open daily. Book a Tour Virtual Tour Ways to Give Online Donations 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. He immediately made inquiry. Having inquired as to the cause, he was informed that Father Diego Farigna had arrived with the Spanish fleet, and that this was the priest who had received the commission from the King to continue the work of baptizing the Negroes. Enslaved people were brought over from Africa to work the sugar fields. This last mentioned convict was executed by strangulation. 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 slave ship, having been anchored in the harbor, suddenly had its hatch yanked open and the light of the sun flooded in upon the prisoners wretchedness. These heroic acts of sublime love for his neighbor were by no means natural to Claver. The order for departure read Make haste. This the jubilant young Jesuit took very literally; so literally in fact, that in imitation of Francis Xavier, he did not even say goodbye to his family, thought the road that led to the port of Seville passed, at one point, within two miles of his home. This, then was their couch, a very uncomfortable one not only for that reason, but especially because they were naked, without any clothing to protect them. 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. Guest: Sister Maria Philomena, M.I.C.M. My grateful thanks to Blessed Mary . 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. He was beatified 16 July, 1850, by Pius IX, and canonized 15 January, 1888, by Leo XIII. 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. Another saint whom he had known at school in Majorca, Saint Alphonsus Rodriguez, revealed his road in life to him. Once the authorities woke up to this situation when a complaint was brought forward that Father Claver was in the habit of re-baptizing Negroes! Arouse guilt? 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. Ignatius Strecker came to America from Germany in 1853. 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. 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. Some of their fellow countryman insulted both the converts and the priests, but the good Fathers patience and obvious holiness soon won them. 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. Jn 17:11). You know the story the conditions under which they were conveyed across the Atlantic were as foul and inhuman as to be beyond belief. When he is starved, he is dumb. Due to the tremendous respect everyone has for the extraordinary Jesuit, these warnings always produced the desired fruit. Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution - Share Alike License. The man of God scourged himself three times nightly: before prayer, before retiring, and after rising. 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. 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. Those who were baptized looked beautiful and happy, while those who were not, looked ugly and were about to be gobbled up by hideous monsters from hell. And in particular, he applied himself by word and prayer to regain the abandoned priests to a meaningful and holy life. 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. In spite of the condemnation of this great crime by Pope Paul III and by other lesser authorities, this supreme villainy, as slave trading was designated by later Pope Pius IX, continued to flourish, all that some of the owners did in response to the voice of the Church was to have their slaves baptized. sriverview@bne.catholic.edu.au College Phone Numbers. In those days, there was hardly such a thing as racial prejudice. A galleon would contain, besides new immigrants, badly needed supplies and medicines, and of course, news and mail. to peoples judged, by the impoverished social consciousness of that time, substandard in their origin, purpose and development. Nothing in Clavers scholastic training, outside of a sincere heart, prepared him for what he would meet on the docks, in the holes of ships and in the slave markets. Though the other young missionaries who were chosen along with our saint received Holy Orders before they departed, Claver decided not to take upon himself the awesome privilege. 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. The most illustrious of his many conversions was that of an English prelate and his Protestant confreres. A civil rights violation? Peter Claver was seventy-one years old. In all he had eighteen. Today one can visit the room and window from which Father Claver peered out to be ready once ships arrived with captured and bartered blacks. The major contagion was smallpox; but others. Built between 1580 and 1654, the structure features an imposing stone facade, yet the interior glows with the rich colors filtered through its stained glass windows. 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. 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. 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. Saint Peter's Mount consists of limestone, which is called 'mergel' in Limburg. 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. These austerities were part of the saints daily nocturnal prayer life.His penances clung to him like the skin to the bones. Nor would he give them back until their owners promised, after confession, to make alms to the leper hospital. Near the confessional he also had holy books with pictures of the Passion, which he insisted that all the people ponder before they confessed. They were packed together like sardines in a can, left to wallow in their own sweat, vomit, urine and human waste. The Jesuits -Isaac Jogues, John de Brebeuf, Noel Chabanel and their companions have their blood soaked indelibly in American soil around the same time Claver was in Cartagena. The priests carried Father Claver in his coffin from the Jesuit house to their main church. 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 Apostle of Cartagena worse a serious face. The beauty of the world; that thus I may with joy and courtesy go on my way. 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. I am sorry for having offended Thee. But what a retched lot was that of the poor slaves! It was during these scourges that the holy mans heroic charity was such a spectacle for even the angels to behold. 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. Forts also lined the harbor. It was a face that betrayed the worn-out condition of his entire body. 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. St. Peter Claver (1580-1654) was a Spanish Jesuit missionary to Latin America. The following prayer service is an adaptation of the Liturgy of the Hours, and can be prayed individually or with a group. Thou gavest life, I pray no act of mine may take away or mar that gift of Thine (continues below). We are all sinners. He had baptized and taught the faith to more than 300,000 slaves during his four decades in Cartagena. Amen 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 the early centuries of Christianity, slavery gradually began to be phased out. 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. He obtained his first degrees at the University of Barcelona. Many of these poor unfortunates had been torn from their families in their prime of life. 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. It was now 1654. 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 fact, he was the first Jesuit ordained in Cartagena. On this pilgrimage, something must have moved him very deeply as he knelt before the miraculous statue, for in later years, if anyone even mentioned the Virgin of Montserrat, he would be unable to withhold his tears, so overwhelming was his love for her. He was much more than that to the Negroes. 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. His bedroom and the room where he died are also preserved to this day in the same place. 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 was not until the advent of Christianity that slavery received a deathblow. 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