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UID:12501-1725840000-1725926399@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Vigils Reading - St Peter Claver
DESCRIPTION:ST PETER CLAVER \nTHE SLAVE OF THE NEGROES \nFrom Butler’s Lives of the Saints1 \n◊◊◊ \nHe was born in Catalonia\, about 1581… He graduated with distinction \n[and entered] the Society of Jesus. He left Spain forever in April 1610\, and was \nordained priest at Cartagena\, in what is now the republic of Colombia. By the \ntime of his ordination the slave trade had been established in the Americas for \nnearly a hundred years\, and the port of Cartagena was one of its principal \ncenters… \nAt this time the leader of the work among the Negroes was Father Alfonso \nde Sandoval\, a great Jesuit missionary who spent forty years in the service of \nthe slaves\, and after working under him Peter Claver declared himself “the slave \nof the Negroes forever”. Although by nature shy and without self-confidence he \nthrew himself into the work with method and organization. He enlisted bands \nof assistants\, and as soon as a slave-ship entered the port… St. Peter Claver \nplunged\, with medicines and food\, bread\, brandy\, lemons\, tobacco to distribute \namong the Negroes\, some of whom were too frightened\, others too ill\, to accept \nthem. “We must speak to them with our hands\, before we try to speak to them \nwith our lips”\, Claver would say. When he came upon any who were dying\, he \nbaptized them\, and then sought out all babies born on the voyage that he might \nbaptize them. He had a band of seven interpreters\, one of whom spoke four \nNegro dialects\, and with their help he taught the slaves and prepared them for \nbaptism\, not only in groups but individually. He made use of pictures\, showing \nour Lord suffering on the cross; above all he tried to instill in them… some idea \nthat as redeemed human beings they had dignity and worth\, even if as slaves…5 \nIt is estimated that in forty years St. Peter Claver instructed and baptized \nover 300\,000 slaves… He took the same trouble to teach them how properly to \nuse the sacrament of penance\, and in one year is said to have heard the \nconfessions of more than five thousand. Many of the stories both of the heroism \nand of the miraculous powers of St. Peter Claver concern his nursing of sick and \ndiseased Negroes\, in circumstances often that no one else\, black or white\, could \nface. \nIn 1650… sickness attacked his emaciated and weakened body\, and he \nwas recalled to the Jesuit residence at Cartagena. But here a virulent epidemic \nhad begun to show itself\, and one of the first to be attacked among the Jesuits \nwas the debilitated missionary… After receiving the last sacraments\, he \nrecovered\, but he was a broken man… \nOn September 6\, 1654 he was taken very ill and became comatose. The \nrumor of his approaching end spread round the city\, everyone suddenly \nremembered the saint again\, and numbers came to kiss his hands before it was \ntoo late. His cell was stripped of everything that could be carried off as a relic. \nSt. Peter Claver never fully recovered consciousness\, and died two days later on \nthe birthday of our Lady. The civil authorities who had looked askance at his \nsolicitude for mere Negro slaves\, and the clergy\, who had called his zeal \nindiscreet and his energy wasted\, now vied with one another to honor his \nmemory… He was canonized in 1888 and was declared by Pope Leo XIII patron \nof all missionary enterprises among Negroes.
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-st-peter-claver-2/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
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