A Saint In The Slave Trade[Saint Peter Claver]

Cartena. Info ^ | 00/00/00 | Arnold Lunn

[Lady In Blue]

From Magnificat.Ca

Thus began forty-four years of unceasing dedication to their spiritual and material betterment by Saint Peter. He watched for the arrival of the slave ships, which brought from ten to twelve thousand souls each year, and never failed to be the first to go aboard, accompanied by his interpreters and carrying the provisions he had been able to beg. He greeted the living, arranged for the burial of the dead and the transport of the sick to hospitals. Having won their sympathy, he went to them regularly with his interpreters and taught them, during several hours’ time, the elements of doctrine, aided by pictures. Before he died, he had baptized 400,000. He put around the necks of each newly baptized child of God, a medal which would thereafter distinguish the Christians from the yet untaught.

Though this was his principal industry, he also spent many days in the nearby lazaretto — a refuge for lepers — and in the hospitals of the region. No infirmity repelled him; the Brother who accompanied him had several times a day to clean his cloak, on which he would lay the sick while he arranged their poor beds. It never ceased to emit a heavenly fragrance. He slept only two or three hours at night, and ate almost nothing. The poor were his beloved children and he their beloved father, whose visits were anxiously awaited and were always too short. Those who resisted him did not do so indefinitely; one man insulted him for twenty-two years, but at the end of that time fell on his knees and begged his pardon. The vision of his charity is certainly reserved for heaven; his biographers scarcely find words adequate to describe his heroic life. Pope Pius IX, who beatified Saint Peter in 1851, commented that never had he read a life of a Saint which so moved him.

After Saint Peter contracted the plague in his declining years, he was left infirm and partially paralyzed. He then had himself tied to a donkey and in that way went about begging and distributing provisions. He had a rude servant who often neglected him and mistreated him, but when his brethren offered him another, asked to be allowed to keep that one, who treated him far better than he deserved. Two years after his death at the age of seventy-four, his body was found intact, despite the humidity of the burial site and the live caustic covering it. Miracles proliferated there and elsewhere by the invocation of his name. A large church was built in Carthagena in his honor, and he became the second patron of his adopted land, Colombia.

Source: Vie abrégée de Saint Pierre Claver, Jésuite, l’Apôtre de Carthagène, by a priest of the diocese of Montreal, 1925.

[Lady In Blue]

ping.

[JMJ333]

Thanks LIB! I've missed you this past week! This place goes down a notch without your fabulous posts. ;)

[Lady In Blue]

You're welcome! There hasn't been too much to post in this section.I've been kind of busy posting and checking out threads on Iraq.

[Coleus]

bttt

[Siobhan]

A most excellent post. It also reminds me of St. Josephine of the Sudan who had been a slave and who became one of the bright lights among the Saints.

[Lady In Blue]

Thanks for the bump!

[Lady In Blue]

Thank you,Siobhan.I don't think I've ever heard about St.Josephine of the Sudan.Sounds interesting.I'll have to see if I can find anything on her online.Thanks!

[nickcarraway]

BUMP

Very interesting post by a very interesting author. Lunn was a prominent convert.

[Salvation]

Bump to the top on 9-09-03!

What a blessing St. Peter Claver was in his day!

[Salvation]

BTTT on 09-09-04, Memorial of St. Peter Claver

[Salvation]

BTTT on September 9, 2005, Memorial of St. Peter Claver!

[Salvation]

Saint of the Day Ping!

Please notify me via FReepmail if you would like to be added to or taken off the Saint of the Day Ping List.

[Coleus]

Knights of Peter Claver

[Smartass]

THANKS FOR     THE PING

[Salvation]

**"I quite agree," replied Father Claver, with the disarming simplicity of the saint. "I am not the proper confessor for fine ladies. You should go to some other confessor. My confessional was never meant for ladies of quality. It is too narrow for their gowns. It is only suited to poor Negresses." **

What a quote!

[Salvation]

This seems very similar to the Knights of Columbus.

[Coleus]

"Founded in 1909 in Mobile, Alabama by several Josephite priests, the Knights of Peter Claver were to be a Black counterpart of the Knights of Columbus, and they were to provide Black men with fraternal support and insurance benefits."