In that way we covered a space to which we at last transferred the sick, by forcing a passage through bands of slaves. Any unauthorized use, without prior written consent of Catholic Online is strictly forbidden and prohibited. So he spoke of eternity, of an everlasting world of joy and another of pain. They were packed together like sardines in a can, left to wallow in their own sweat, vomit, urine and human waste. 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. In truth, it was a blessed form of servitude for those eighteen Negroes. Wahlberg who was born in Boston, Massachusetts, is a practicing Catholic. With their help, he was able to teach the Gospel with words that could be understood. Peter Claver Catholic Church was born. Claver was not always well received. 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. After receiving the last sacraments he recovered slightly but he was never the same. One by one, the religious and the Negroes clasped his feet, which were giving off such a heavenly fragrance, and bathed them with their kisses. That entire day our young hero was unable to shake off the experience and walked about as if he were not on earth. Category. 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 . But it was not without the greatest difficulty, combined with some serious physical aggressiveness, that the sons of Saint Ignatius (with the help of the sons of Saint Augustine), strove to prevent the swelling crowds from literally tearing the saint apart in their efforts to procure relics. One of his linguistic gems was Calepino, a veritable genius, who spoke eleven different African dialects. There was nothing artificial about Peter Claver. They discovered a God, a gentle Savior, and a theology of history, that could help make sense of their enslavement. 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. WATCH Actor Mark Wahlberg's Inspirational Today Show Interview on Ash Wednesday Shows the Importance of Lent and Fasting! Like all young men of his stripe he looked for adventure and new opportunities. Many of these poor unfortunates had been torn from their families in their prime of life. No time was too early for these faithful Cartagenians to unburden their souls to God. But his main purpose of helping out at the hospital, which he did once a week, was to win sinners back to God. 36 St Peter Claver by Shining Light Dolls published on 2019-09-08T23:42:20Z. Junior Knights and Junior Daughters of KPC, Inc. Until death! the good father quietly responded. Come to me, my Father! Claver, like the Good Shepherd, ran to embrace him, and, for a time, tears choked any words either tried to utter. At the age of twenty he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Tarragona. Community Redevelopment Agencies have proven historically to provide distressed communities with a better economy through improved infrastructure . Church law forbade a master to hold a slave who wanted to become a priest. The trade had recently been given a considerable impetus, for the local Indians the natives- were deemed not physically fitted to work in the gold and silver mines and so there was this big demand for blacks from Angola and Congo. About The Church of Peter Claver: The church that bears his name is open daily. 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. Take a tour of the Shrine of St. Joseph in St. Louis.Learn More, Receive the sacrament of marriage at St. Joseph.Learn More, See opening hours and get directions.Learn More, 2023 Shrine of St. Joseph | 1220 North 11th Street, St. Louis, Missouri 63106 | info@shrineofstjoseph.org | (314) 231-9407. One might call him, though I dont like the term, an ordinary boy- quite above the ordinary intellectually- a little below average personality-wise, though very likable and modest. The Novitiate in Tarragona was to our young novice a foretaste of the delights of the blessed in paradise. Of these we had two wallets full, and we used them all up on this occasion. In 1853, Ignatius Strecker, a native of Germany, arrived in St. Louis, Missouri, with his wife and nine children. Due to the tremendous respect everyone has for the extraordinary Jesuit, these warnings always produced the desired fruit. The supreme charity of our saint was most vividly portrayed in his solicitude for the sick; and Cartagena, in its infant years, had plenty of sick and very sick people. All: Lord, make haste to help me. After Easter Peter Claver was back on the road instructing newly-arrived slaves and tending the sick. The Superior of the college arranged for the two of them to spend fifteen minutes a day conversing about spiritual things. 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. A witness testified to the Office of Inquisition in Cartagena that, on one occasion, he had seen several Negroes floating naked around the ceiling in a house at night after dabbling in this witchcraft. Finally, before departing, he sprinkled them with perfume. 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 had another side to him that cannot be overlooked. Absentee Line: (07) 3810 5950 He did not know the full story of the treatment meted out to the slaves till his own arrival here. After being brutally beaten, raped, starved, maimed, tortured and terrorized, despite deaths from riots, suicides, lynchings, pestilence and disease, beyond those thrown overboard, an average ten thousand living slaves were landed in Cartagena each year. The Jesuits were delighted to receive their new novice, as he had already merited for himself distinctive recognition for exceptional scholastic achievements at Barcelona. There they languished for two months. Claver came from an ethic of religious consecration where missionaries dared death, hardship, sickness and every conceivable challenge to bring the gospel to foreign lands. Some were so debased as to sell their own children for gain. 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. For sure, the last thing anyone would do to avoid a disease would be to kiss the contagious sores, suck out poison and vermin from them, and wash the infections with ones own handkerchiefs. Much as he loved to visit the hospital of Saint Sebastian, the leprosarium of Saint Lazarus occupied the tenderest place in Clavers magnanimous heart. 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.. Ignatius Strecker came to America from Germany in 1853. September 9 marked the Feast of St. Peter Claver, a Jesuit priest who ministered to African slaves in Colombia in the 17th century. 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. The Thirty Years War and the wars of religion was the backdrop for this chapter of history within which Claver lived. The Sisters of St Peter Claver were founded by Blessed Theresa Ledchowska. Pages could be written about the glorious role ex-slaves played in the history of the Church- and not only ex-slaves, but actual slaves, like Saint Felicitas, who is mentioned in the Canon of every Mass along with her holy mistress, Saint Perpetua, whom she refused to be separated from, even in death. When he is overloaded, he is dumb. The walls of Cartagena silently echoed the solemn news as it was piously whispered in every corner, The Saint is dying! This, of course, he had never done, except conditionally in cases of doubt, but he was nevertheless forbidden to baptize in the future. Spain brought a cease to trafficking in slaves in 1850. Baptism was received with such an emotion of joy as to move the hardest heart. Strangely enough, when the man saw the saint he called out to him, Oh my Father! In 1602 he entered the Society of Jesus. Masters were willingly freeing their slaves. It is estimated that in forty years Peter Claver instructed and baptized over 300,000 slaves. You can add to these the faded and worn cloak of Saint Peter Claver. After this we began an elementary instruction about baptism, that is, the wonderful effects of the sacrament on body and soul. 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. . The convicts had common morning and evening prayer, litanies and the daily Rosary. The saint would never complain. In 1537, when the enslaving of the Indians was still more common than that of the blacks, this Pontiff thundered out in indignation. And when the slaves misbehaved Father Claver was always blamed. He never complains in any circumstances, for he is only an ass. The Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary were founded in 1949 by Father Leonard Feeney, M.I.C.M. The slightest incentive from the slave hunters, whether it be tinkling bells or sparkling gems, would move tribal chief to wage petty wars for the sole purpose of selling their prisoners for such unworthy profit. After a wearisome voyage he landed with his companions at Cartagena what is today the coast of modern day Colombia, South America. When he was only thirteen, his mother Ana died, and within the same month his twenty-year-old brother followed her to the grave. Brother Nicolas was downstairs and heard a noise from the upstairs room where Claver was bedded. THE Apostolate of St. Peter Claver is unique. They all had souls to save. Due to the importance of this apostolate, Rome was willing to allow an exception to its canon forbidding clerics to own slaves. In the history of God's Saints we read of heroic souls giving themselves as slaves in exchange for Christian captives. Mary Theresa has worked a miracle for me." Upon hearing the commotion, the doctors ran to the ward and were dumbfounded. 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. Another miracle is about a fierce and rebellious slave named Amete, who resisted the saint's efforts to baptize him for more than 30 years. Federal Tax Identification Number: 81-0596847. 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. 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. Geography would be forever altered. 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. The pastor of St Peter Claver in New Orleans, who has been on leave since the revelation of an abuse allegation in January, has responded with a lawsuit of his own. To prevent excessive dampness, someone had thought of building up a mound with a mixture of tiles and broken pieces of brick. At that moment. "No, no. 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. Suddenly the bearded padre would appear like an avenging angel, whip in hand (the same one he applied unmercifully to himself), and he descended on the wicked party with wrath, terrifying the guilty, and carrying off the devils spoils- i.e., drums or other instruments. The whites were also affected. 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. 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