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UID:13900-1757376000-1757462399@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Vigils Reading - St Peter Claver
DESCRIPTION:ST PETER CLAVER \nTHE SLAVE OF THE NEGROES \nFrom Butler’s Lives of the Saints \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 the \nslaves\, and after working under him Peter Claver declared himself “the slave of \nthe 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. \nWhen he came upon any who were dying\, he baptized them\, and then \nsought out all babies born on the voyage that he might baptize them. He had a \nband of seven interpreters\, one of whom spoke four Negro dialects\, and with \ntheir help he taught the slaves and prepared them for baptism\, not only in \ngroups but individually. He made use of pictures\, showing our Lord suffering \non the cross; above all he tried to instill in them… some idea that as redeemed \nhuman beings they had dignity and worth\, even if as slaves… \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 rumor of \nhis approaching end spread round the city\, everyone suddenly remembered the \nsaint again\, and numbers came to kiss his hands before it was too late. His cell \nwas stripped of everything that could be carried off as a relic. St Peter Claver \nnever fully recovered consciousness\, and died two days later on the birthday of \nour Lady. The civil authorities who had looked askance at his solicitude for mere \nNegro slaves\, and the clergy\, who had called his zeal indiscreet and his energy \nwasted\, now vied with one another to honor his memory… He was canonized in \n1888 and was declared by Pope Leo XIII patron of all missionary enterprises \namong Negroes.
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-st-peter-claver-3/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
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