Across the sea a ship arose on the horizon. His Lenten sermons were so moving that, due to them hundreds of young men, ex-libertines, and widowers, sought entry into the different orders that served the spiritual and corporal needs of the city. 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. Thank you. 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. ". He was said to have the gift of prophecy as well as the ability to read souls. The doctors recognized such a miracle and it was later authenticated by the Vatican in 1887, leading to Peter Claver's canonization in 1888. Sometimes two men chained together would be from warring tribes, and horrifying scenes of rage would take place. The Sisters of St Peter Claver were founded by Blessed Theresa Ledchowska. Again at two oclock he would return after a scanty meal and a meditation. He was no egotistic eccentric who delighted in doing daring things for the sake of being unique! I never heard him complain. So great was Clavers love for Tunga that he was prompted upon his deathbed to confer upon that monasterys novices his greatest treasure- the spiritual writings of good Brother Alonso- which he has guarded jealously though his arduous life. Late in 1861, a sharp piece of iron bruised his chest, resulting in . It behooves me, Claver once wrote, always to imitate the example of the ass. The novice was extremely devoted to the Blessed Mother and particularly fond of this shrine. Carrying two baskets of oranges, lemons, sweet biscuits, and I know not what else, we hurried toward them. Its a filthy voyageas well as a laborious [one]., Sir Dalby Thomascommander of the Royal Africa Company at Cape Coast, the Gold Coast, c. 1700Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440-1870,Touchstone Books, 1997. It came very slowly. 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. Some cases involved actual diabolic manifestations. But for every chore he performed, whether it was sweeping the floors, changing linens, washing clothes or dishes, or cooking, the visiting Jesuit, in his humility, always first asked permission of the Superior. While he preached, he suffered. Episode 361: Whether God Exists? the Five Proofs, The Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Outside the Church there is no Salvation (Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus), Saint Benedict Center in Richmond, New Hampshire, Brother Francis, M.I.C.M. Funk, Motown, Pop, Pop Soul, Quiet Storm, Soul, Southern Soul, R&B, Brill Building Pop, Rhythm And Blues, and Classic Soul. St. Peter Claver was canonized in 1888 by Pope Leo . Peter Claver was a man with a mission. 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. The religious there used to say that their welcome friend, Father Claver, did the work of forty men. He felt he could never advise another to bear a cross that he himself wasnt already bearing. 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. Christians were ambivalent about these sentiments. Near the confessional he also had holy books with pictures of the Passion, which he insisted that all the people ponder before they confessed. Why? The slaves were disembarked, and found to be routinely chained and roped together and shut up in the yards where crowds came to watch them, idle gazers wrote Father de Sandoval, drawn by curiosity and careful not to come too close. Hundreds of men, women and children who had been for several weeks shut up without even the care given to cattle in the ships hold, were now fatigued, ill or dying, herded together in a confined space in a climate that was unwholesome from dampness and heat. He first asked them for their babies so that he might poor the saving water of Baptism upon them; then, seeking out the dying, he spoke to them by way of interpreters, and obtaining their consent, he baptized them too. 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. 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. 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. 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. Cartagena was hit with five major epidemics during Clavers apostleship (1615-1654). Lima in Peru had five- Saint Rose, Saint Francis Solano, Saint Martin de Porres, Saint Turibius, and Saint John Massias. The fatigue of this Lenten routine was aggravated unmercifully by the excruciating heat, the bite of mosquitoes, and the stinging itch of a full ankle length hairshirt that the holy confessor wore beneath his cassock next to his body. Exploiters of the Indians are instruments of Satan for the forced servitude of human beings of any race, Christian or not, is a thing abhorrent and damnable. Unfortunately, the Pope was far away from the scene of the crime nor was his strength in arms, but rather in the faith of his subjects, who chose at times to ignore him. St. Peter Claver (1580-1654) was a Spanish Jesuit missionary to Latin America. He never bothered philosophizing about the evils of a system, while planting class hatred and bitterness, as the Socialists of our day do. Returning from the pilgrimage, Peter took his first vows in the Society and was inspired to write the following prophetic act of oblation: I shall consider the great oblation assumed by one who has made the consecration of himself to God I must dedicate myself to the service of God until death, on the understanding that I am like a slave, wholly occupied in the service of his master. 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. Even in sickness he would not ease up. Too bad todays social experts werent around in the seventeenth century to help the slaves. 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. In all this he found more opportunity to suffer. Again the gruesome routine began, washing their infections, kissing their sores, bandaging their wounds, even sweeping up their hovels. Others were captured at random especially able bodied males and females deemed suitable for labor and breeding. With its ideal natural harbor, Cartagena became a stopping point for ships, or galleons, as they were called, on their way to and from the homeland. SEE ALSO: #BreakingNews California Catholic Bishop David O'Connell Shot and Killed at Age 69 - RIP to the Peacemaker Bishop - https://www.catholicnewsworld.com/2023/02/breakingnews-california-bishop-david.html Bishop OConnell, was a native of Ireland who spent most of his 43 years as a priest serving in LA. Truer to his own biography, what might we learn from Claver . 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. 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. Peter Claver, SJ (Spanish: Pedro Claver y Corber; Catalan: Pere Claver i Corber; 26 June 1580 - 8 September 1654) was a Spanish Jesuit priest and missionary born in Verd (Catalonia, Spain) who, due to his life and work, became the patron saint of slaves, the Republic of Colombia, and ministry to African Americans.. During the 40 years of his ministry in the New Kingdom of Granada, it . Another excess that occupied his zeal and caused him great anxiety was certain pagan festivals and rites that weak Christians sometimes slipped back into. Cajeten Pereira Bishop House In total six people were killed including the priest and three nuns killed in road accident at Sumer. St. Peter Claver. So, from Jesuit priestly ranks arose this dreamer, the young man Peter Claver, of upper middle class bearing, born in the city of Verdu in Catalonia about the year 1581. Episode 364: What Is the Point of Lent? Slavery is not a European import to a perfectly virtuous non-European world. 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. 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. Give it the least bit of pampering and it will want more and more. Some of their fellow countryman insulted both the converts and the priests, but the good Fathers patience and obvious holiness soon won them. 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. His feast day is celebrated on September 9th. . The convicts had common morning and evening prayer, litanies and the daily Rosary. Stay up to date with the latest news, information, and special offers. The school continued to be operated by the Daughters of the Heart of Mary following the . 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. Falling down before him, the veteran apostle kissed his feet. About a third of them died on the forced journey from Africa and many more would lose their lives in the subsequent years . 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. 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