The laws of Spain at least provided for the marriages of slaves, forbade their separation from their families and defended them from unjust seizure after winning their freedom. Clasping his feet in their hands, they bade him farewell amid a profusion of sighs and tears. Masters were willingly freeing their slaves. St. Peter Claver was born at Verdu, Catalonia, Spain, in 1580, of impoverished parents descended from ancient and distinguished families. Always he spoke of God He was humble. 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. He had baptized and taught the faith to more than 300,000 slaves during his four decades in Cartagena. 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 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.. Enslaved people were brought over from Africa to work the sugar fields. This steady concourse lasted until nightfall when the Fathers insisted on sending the people away and closing the doors. 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. Peter Claver Catholic Church was born. Creative Commons Attribution - Share Alike License. Nor could anyone console him until he had restored the interpreter to health. Church of Saint Peter Claver is located in West Hartford Connecticut This miraculous healing led to the canonization of Peter Claver as a saint of the Catholic Church. Personal and occupational duties stood in the way of the man being then reconciled but he took ill and was removed to St. Sebastians hospital where before he died he was received into the Church by Father Claver. 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. Cartagena was a central stopping point for this inhuman traffic. At long last, the pilgrim came home to his city, Cartagena. 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. One day he happened to strike his breast against an angular piece of iron. 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. You can add to these the faded and worn cloak of Saint Peter Claver. Saint Peter Claver,Priest and ReligiousMemorialSeptember 9th. 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. 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. 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. As the saying goes, only love can afford to be severe. It was not until the advent of Christianity that slavery received a deathblow. She stared at Claver and sighed, Jesus, Jesus how tired I am. Then, pressed by the others to relate what she has seen, she said that as she walked down a long beautiful road, a white man of great beauty stopped her and told her to return, for she could go no further. After this we began an elementary instruction about baptism, that is, the wonderful effects of the sacrament on body and soul. Take a virtual tour to learn the history of this beautiful church. 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. Arriving at the shack where the men lay writing in the mud, the gentle doctor lifted them up one by one onto some dry mats. 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. 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. As his faithful friend and companion, Brother Nicholas, helped him into a bed, the saint moaned, This sickness is the reward for my sins. The healing occurred at St. Joseph's parish in. This time he stumbled into the Jesuit residence with a body that could scarcely be recognized. The young Claver exhibited fine qualities of mind and spirit and was destined for the Church. . 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. Nor can the Africans themselves escape the blame. Father Peter Claver was overjoyed and dragged himself from his bed to greet his successor. To conclude the sessions he would hold aloft the crucifix and have the slaves join in together with the prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Thou art my Father. Near the confessional he also had holy books with pictures of the Passion, which he insisted that all the people ponder before they confessed. Cartagena needed a saint. 36 St Peter Claver by Shining Light Dolls published on 2019-09-08T23:42:20Z. One of the brothers who was ordered to take care of the saint during one of his illnesses, when he saw that he still tormented himself so, exclaimed, Ah Father, how long is the ass to be thus harnessed?. 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. St. Peter Claver. The religious there used to say that their welcome friend, Father Claver, did the work of forty men. Book a Tour Virtual Tour Ways to Give Online Donations After Easter Peter Claver was back on the road instructing newly-arrived slaves and tending the sick. 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!. In 1853, Ignatius Strecker, a native of Germany, arrived in St. Louis, Missouri, with his wife and nine children. After all, it is a lot easier to love those who are clean than to love those who are not. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. Finally, before departing, he sprinkled them with perfume. The priests carried Father Claver in his coffin from the Jesuit house to their main church. Peter Claver was a man with a mission. However, the consideration of the problem of his wife and family, who would resent the temporal loss that would go with his renouncing of the Church of England, prevented the weak man from doing his duty to God right away, though he did promise to do so before he died. And he delighted in good music. Otherwise, Claver remained in his room in his last several years, to be not only inactive but even forgotten and somewhat neglected; the numbers of fellow Jesuits in the house were much reduced and those who remained were fully occupied in coping with the confusion and duties imposed by the spreading epidemic, but even so their indifference to the saintly priest was surprising. The hospital, run by the religious of St John of God, was almost always overcrowded, due to the scourge of frequent epidemics and continual warfare. Most of the major European nations dabbled in the slave trade, with Portugal paving the way, and England soon monopolizing it. 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. I never heard him complain. 1615, he was ordained a priest of God at Cartagenas Cathedral, at the side altar at the right side of the sanctuary that remains to this day. From whom does the devil want to divide Jesus? Claver greeted sinners and even served them. He studied the science of the saints at the feet of this lay brother. As the affable Jesuit ate and drank nd conversed with the delighted crew, the Englishmen, somewhat won over already by his manners, so contrary to what they had heard of Jesuits, requested that the priest meet their venerable archdeacon, who happened to have been captured along with them. His fellow Jesuits, having been reduced to an extreme poverty, were so busy with their individual responsibilities that days would pass without anyone even visiting him. Shop St. Peter Claver, St. Peter Claver was born at Verdu, Catalonia, Spain, in 1580, of impoverished parents descended from ancient and distinguished families. With a precision-made-second-nature-through-routine, the good father gathered together his little army with their provisions and set out to battle. Sometimes two men chained together would be from warring tribes, and horrifying scenes of rage would take place. Apostolate Claver couldnt remove the cross but he could make it sweet. Only death could drag hi away. The next time he left was to hear the confession of the holy laywoman, Dona Isabel who, sick and bedridden, was afraid that it might be her last opportunity to speak to the saint in this life. 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. 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. It was November 1615. The slave ship is here, he crescendos, then the hook must be baited.. In the early centuries of Christianity, slavery gradually began to be phased out. 14-141). 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. To Claver, the poorest of the poor were truly the least of His brethren and heirs to a kingdom not of this world. 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.. It was Father Claver. For this extraordinary Jesuit, whose life we are about to study, the arrival of a slave ship was like the homecoming of a long lost son. 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. The saint made it so simple for their confused and despairing consciences that not one of Cartagenas condemned criminals went to his execution unrepentant. He obtained his first degrees at the University of Barcelona. The Gospel thus presents us the three divine Persons joined in love. Enter your email address to receive notifications by email every time we post something to the site. Furthermore, their own chiefs, who showed absolutely no concern for a common hue when material gain was offered to them, often betrayed the Negroes. Our Present . 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. Due to the tremendous respect everyone has for the extraordinary Jesuit, these warnings always produced the desired fruit. One he always made use of was a very amateurish, one might even respectfully say ugly, representation of the Judgment. 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. 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