The Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary were founded in 1949 by Father Leonard Feeney, M.I.C.M. They were packed together like sardines in a can, left to wallow in their own sweat, vomit, urine and human waste. 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. And he did win thousands of them despite all kinds of obstacles. He loved to entertain. Answered Prayers The magnificent Main Altar is the result of a pledge made by grateful parishioners who made a promise to St. Joseph. Though Father Sandoval, the founder of the slave apostolate, had only just initiated his new assistant in the care of the blacks, the veteran missioner was shortly thereafter recalled to Peru; consequently, he had to bestow the entire apostolate upon Father Claver. City magistrates ordered that he should be buried at public expense and with great pomp. . After receiving Baptism from John in the Jordan, Jesus was called by the Father my beloved Son (Mt 3:17), and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in the form of a dove (cf. They thought that their blood was going to be used to dye the ships sails, and that their fat to grease her keel. His Mass, which followed, was deliberately short. They provided no religious instruction or ministration for their slaves, no alleviation of their physical condition, so that the sacrament of baptism became to the slaves, unfortunately, a sign and symbol of their oppression and wretchedness instead of their salvation. The clergy were practically powerless before the powers-that-be as well as by their timidity and inaction. Then we sat, or rather knelt beside them and bathed their faces and bodies with wine. Like an angel of mercy, the black-robed friar would arrive at the colony with the gifts that he had begged in the market place: oranges, bananas, preserves, sweet cakes, and soothing medicines. The whites were also affected. The saint spent one more year in the Novitiate at Tunga, high in the mountains of Colombia. Wahlberg who was born in Boston, Massachusetts, is a practicing Catholic. Soon it was clear- no cause for alarm- it was only a slave ship. Federal Tax Identification Number: 81-0596847. Website powered by MemberLeap. Built between 1580 and 1654, the structure features an imposing stone facade, yet the interior glows with the rich colors filtered through its stained glass windows. Catholic Online is a Project of Your Catholic Voice Foundation, a Not-for-Profit Corporation. The young student at Barcelona decided to do more than just to benefit from the Jesuits education. From a letter written by Peter Claver, priest, to his superiors, written in the Spanish language, 31 May, 1627. epist. St. Christopher, holy patron of travelers, protect me, and lead me safely to my destiny. Father Claver never tired of persuading the slaves from the occasions of sin or of urging the owners to care for the souls of the slaves; he became so great a moral force in Cartagena that a story is told of a slave frightening off a prostitute who was pestering him in the street saying, Look, here comes Father Claver. And the woman ran away. After all, it is a lot easier to love those who are clean than to love those who are not. That seems a lot, considering that the city numbered only about twelve thousand inhabitants before 1650. 2023 Knights of Peter Claver Masters were willingly freeing their slaves. When he slept, or tried to sleep, he removed only the neck rope and the crown of thorns. Such demonic phenomena were not uncommon among the uncivilized races. So great was his civil influence that he actually obtained from the magistrates and order forbidding the sale of liquor to the Negroes. Famous actor and producer, Mark Wahlberg, age 51, went on NBC's the Today Show to discuss Lent. 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. He was as Arnold Lunn puts it, a divinitarian. The gift he gave the poor slaves was a gift infinitely more precious than sympathy, or even a miraculous cure (which he was quite often the instrument of). The Catholic Church enjoyed an uneasy peace throughout Europe in the 1600s. As he was being carried back to his room he said to one of the brothers, I am going to die; what do you desire of me in the next life? That you recommend this city and house to God, answered the brother. Before pouring the cleansing water, he would ask them three times in a loud voice if they wanted to become Christians. There were times when he even raised the dead with it. The convicts had common morning and evening prayer, litanies and the daily Rosary. Cannot charity traverse seas already opened by cupidity?. Your Catholic Voice Foundation has been granted a recognition of tax exemption under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Claver felt as if the Holy Ghost had descended on them as He had at Pentecost. One Turkish galley slave had resisted Clavers pleadings for over twenty years when the saint heard that a sickness had put him at deaths door. He refused to be satisfied with a sloppy performance; each slave had to do it perfectly. Extra ecclesiam nulla salus (outside the Church there is no salvation). For the Christian women he had dresses. We ask this through Our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Mary Theresa has worked a miracle for me." Upon hearing the commotion, the doctors ran to the ward and were dumbfounded. Claver showed them that they were loved even more than they were abused, and that divine love must not be outraged by evil ways, by cruelty and lust. To Claver, they were all important. It reached its climax in a pilgrimage to the beloved Spanish shrine of the Black Virgin of Montserrat. I never heard him complain. The Novitiate in Tarragona was to our young novice a foretaste of the delights of the blessed in paradise. Play Ep. Whether the saint could bilocate or not isnt known, but whenever the slaves got out of line in the city, the watchful shepherd inevitably showed up to put the fear of God back into them. Protect Your Family Resources News VIDEO NOW AVAILABLE: Dismantling Systemic Racism in America February 27, 2023 Saint September 9 : St. Peter Claver a Miracle Worker and the Patron of Racism, Slaves and African Americans September 08, 2022 The son of a Catalonian farmer, was born at Verdu, in 1581; he died on the 8th of September, 1654. 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. 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. He and his wife Rhea (married in 2009) have four children: Ella, 19, Michael, 16, Brendan, 14, and Grace, 13. February 17th 1937 was a day upon which a miracle happened. The St. Peter Claver Place Apartments project will receive a $4 million rebate of the taxes generated by the project in yearly installments at a rate of 95% until the $4 million rebate is satisfied. The missionaries expenses were paid for by the Catholic King, Philip III, who had requested from all his provinces at least one priest to be sent to the recently established kingdom of New Granada (Colombia) across the ocean. His feast is observed throughout the Americas and other places around the world on the 9th of September. How beautifully did his words echo on their souls as he spoke to them of the infinite value of their cross if only they should bear it with joy and patience. Three . Devil means divider. Funk, Motown, Pop, Pop Soul, Quiet Storm, Soul, Southern Soul, R&B, Brill Building Pop, Rhythm And Blues, and Classic Soul. Leo Landoll stood at the altar of God and spoke the words of consecration and for the first time Jesus Christ, body and soul became present in a small white church that had recently been a private home. We have before us a most extraordinary saint- unquestionably the most extraordinary saint who ever walked this earth. 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.. To cover the feverish and naked, to wash wounds, to shroud women penitents and to place upon it the abandoned sick, until he could procure them a mat for a bed. It was not until the advent of Christianity that slavery received a deathblow. Though it must be said that more than a few of these wretches were won over by the example of Father Claver and unburdened their tormented consciences to him. He never bothered philosophizing about the evils of a system, while planting class hatred and bitterness, as the Socialists of our day do. 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. Saint Melania, a wealthy Roman matron, freed her 8,000 slaves at once. It was 1602 when he entered their Novitiate in Tarragona. The ship would then be loaded up with the extracted gold and silver and other new-world products destined for Spain. Facilitating this trafficking in human cargo was the reasoning that blacks were in most if not all instances culturally and essentially inferior. Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution - Share Alike License. Before parting from his beloved teacher, Claver was given a unique privilege, a privilege not granted to any other student, of keeping the spiritual notes that Brother Alphonsus had personally written for him. Sometimes he would have to yield to nature and collapse. Stay up to date with the latest news, information, and special offers. In the forty years of Saint Peter Clavers labor, this ecclesiastical office only sentenced two men to death, and sad to say, only one of these incorrigibles died repentant; the other departed the world uttering vicious blasphemies. The healing occurred at St. Joseph's parish in. Until death! the good father quietly responded. But he found time to care for other sufferers besides slaves. He informed his father of his intention to join the Society. The science of the school of Peter Claver was the art of dealing with pain, and of knowing its worth. Were it not for a miracle, the poor Father, to the very end a victim to the devils rage, would have been tossed off and perhaps killed. Well, the good influence proved too much. One of them appeared even more splendid than the rest. Here in the solitude of his confinement he suffered not only physically but also mentally. The joy in their eyes as they looked at us was something to see. One Dutchman was particularly hard, and assaulted Father Claver verbally every time he saw him, shouting in his fury that the priest would never bewitch him as he did the others. He, his wife, and daughter settled in St. Joseph's Parish in St. Louis, Missouri. Hence, the nefarious exploitation and commerce of slavery, for there was no industry to speak of, only raw human labor for which the royals and their cohorts deemed themselves unworthy. Saint Peter Claver Church was established in 1931 to serve the African American community of greater Montclair, New Jersey. Book a Tour Virtual Tour Ways to Give Online Donations This collection, which dates from 1904 to 2009, with bulk dates of 1980 to 1994, consists of records and materials evidencing the workings of the church and its community, primarily . Then he would go unperturbed into a more remote area in order to console the more pathetic cases. He studied at the Jesuit college of Barcelona, entered the Jesuit novitiate at Tarragona in 1602 and took his final vows on August 8th, 1604. 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. Then, using our own cloaks, for they had nothing of this sort, and to ask the owners for others would have been a waste of words, we provided for them a smoke treatment, by which they seemed to recover their warmth and the breath of life. When a language was unuasually remote, Father Peter would have to speak through a chain of five or six interpreters to get across his message. The Jesuits -Isaac Jogues, John de Brebeuf, Noel Chabanel and their companions have their blood soaked indelibly in American soil around the same time Claver was in Cartagena. In his humility, in order to avoid the attention of the crowd, who would have swarmed about him had they seen him, he had his lame body strapped to a horse in the hopes that the animal would take him swiftly to the leprosarium through the back roads. 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. Thank God, that for Father Claver the Church had her seasons and Lent didnt last forever! mountelizabeth.com.sg. Through his efforts three hundred thousand souls entered the Church. He was born in 1580 in a little town of Spain called Verdu in the diocese of Solfona and he was baptized Peter. In every possible was he tried to help them, whether by procuring them good lawyers, or even by speaking to judges, in order to win them lighter sentences. On Ash Wednesday, which begins the 40 day period of lent, a time of prayer and fasting, Wahlberg encouraged viewers to take up a lenten penance. The saint refused to rest until he had thoroughly expurgated these unholy interferences which, among the slaves, were always connected with the sin of drunkenness. T he second miracle took place in St. Louis. Extra ecclesiam nulla salus (outside the Church there is no salvation). Fr John Asare-Dankwah, who was removed from ministry at St Peter Claver New Orleans in January following a child sex abuse allegation, has countersued his accuser for defamation. Day 1 - St. Peter Claver Novena. All of them died on the spot. Her body began to move. 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. Saint Paul, who never actually condemned slavery as such, nevertheless elevated the slave as equal in Gods eyes to the free, thereby inflicting slavery with a mortal wound. He encouraged those masters who were good Catholics to look after the spiritual as well as the bodily well-being of the Negroes. #Saint pf September 9 : St. Peter Claver a Miracle Worker and the Patron of #Racism, Slaves and #AfricanAmericans. In this case, the dignitary was the governor himself, Don Jeronimo Zueso Cassola, the same man who raced to tell Father Claver the good news. Often he would take mission trips into the thick of the country to look after his flock. Heartfelt Condolences to Fatima Sister Fr. He was too busy loving to worry about hating. In a second, a priest opened it. England, Spain, Portugal, Holland and France fought over what they found here while they each set up shop here in hostile territory, in instances, owned and operated by the original peoples they found here. This was his city. Many an ivory cheek ran with tears as the Spaniards listened in wonder to the angelic voices of the slaves resounding from the walls of the Jesuit Church with an incomparably touching rendition of the Dies Irae or a triumphant Gloria. O, holy brother of my soul, what a field lies here opened to your zeal! (Fakhri B. Maluf, Ph.D.), RIP Prior: Brother Andr Marie, M.I.C.M. On one occasion, as out future apostle passed by his spiritual master with a fellow student on their way to recreation, Brother Alphonsus stopped them and said, Remember, the Three Persons of the Most Blessed Trinity go with you. Instantly the holy porter was seized by a heavenly rapture and he stood senseless as if in trance. . As one of Clavers biographers put it: In an age where man could become so subhuman, others were needed who were superhuman.. And though death should have come much sooner than it did for a man who had trodden on danger as one would on rose petals, it finally began to move on him mercilessly. It was during these scourges that the holy mans heroic charity was such a spectacle for even the angels to behold. The Saint is dying! Suddenly, the sad reality dawned on the multitude, who awakened as from a trance, and they all, black and white, rich and poor, made their way to the Jesuit house. Colonization and exploration was, in all parts, viewed an evil specter descended on pristine lands. The driver of the vehicle and a teacher were also killed in the incident around 3 pm. It was not an uncommon thing to see a man who had been a slave give Holy Communion to one who had been his master. He avoided food, rest and recreation and other pleasures popularly considered, lest such should divert him from his spiritual path. In a short while, when these poor creatures were fattened up a little and washed, they would be auctioned off in the market place and sometimes end up far away. Give it the least bit of pampering and it will want more and more. He also shared a video on his Instagram, which is below the Today Show interview: WATCH the Inspiring Today Show Interview below: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mark Wahlberg (@markwahlberg), Auxiliary Bishop David OConnell of Los Angeles, California, was killed on February 18th. St. Peter Claver was canonized in 1888 by Leo XIII, along with Alphonsus Rodriguez. From 1198 to 1787 the former redeemed, from the Moors. 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. 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