Blessed Peter Claver

What was his joy, then, when he was sent to study philosophy in Majorca, where he promised himself he would receive above all lessons in holiness from Brother Alphonsus Rodrig frère Alphonse Rodriguez Jesuit brother and porter in Majorca, spiritual mentor to Peter Claver. uez, who was then serving as the porter at the college, and whom God enlightened with interior lights all the more abundant as he buried himself in the most obscure function. Upon his arrival, Peter Claver went to find him. These two angels of the earth recognized each other upon seeing one another. Interiorly enlightened as to each other's merit, they were mutually seized by the same respect, the same confidence, the same love. They prostrated themselves at the same time before one another; they understood each other without speaking; their souls had just joined, united in God, never to be separated again! They asked the superior for permission to meet every day, at a fixed hour, to converse about spiritual things. In these celestial colloquies, the soul of Rodriguez passed entirely into that of his beloved disciple.

To reward and at the same time encourage Brother Alphonsus's zeal regarding his disciple, God revealed to the holy old man the glory He destined for our blessed one and uncovered for him the brilliant thrones of glory and majesty spoken of in the Apocalypse. All these thrones were occupied by the Saints who had acquired the most merit during their life on earth. Brother Alphonsus admired this glory; his eyes were dazzled by it, his soul was charmed by it; he was enjoying these divine magnificences that enraptured him, when his angel pointed out to him an empty throne, higher and more radiant than those by which it was surrounded. Encouraged by the kindness of his celestial guide, the holy religious said to him: "This throne surely awaits someone! For whom, then, is it prepared?" — "For your disciple Claver," the angel replied to him. "He will merit it through heroic virtues and through the prodigious zeal that will cause him to win a multitude of souls for Jesus Christ in the West Indies."

With what veneration was the same old man filled from that moment for the Apostle who was to save such a great number of souls and procure so much glory for God? He believed he should let him foresee the great designs of God before their separation; he went to find him and said to him: "My dear brother, I cannot express enough the sorrow of my heart at the thought that God is unknown to the greater part of the earth, because His ministers are lacking for these distant missions. What tears are demanded by the sight of so many peoples who go astray, because no light is presented to them to guide them, who perish, not because they wish to lose themselves, but because no effort is made to save them! One sees so many useless workers where there is little harvest!... And where it is abundant, there are so few workers!... What a multitude of souls would they not send to heaven, if they went to America, so many ministers who live in Europe in a sort of idleness! One fears the fatigue there would be in seeking them, and one does not fear the peril and the crime there is in abandoning them; one despises the riches of these regions, one despises the men!"

"Can charity, then, not go upon these seas that greed has been furrowing for so long? Entire fleets loaded with their treasures arrive in the ports of Spain: what a number of souls could one not lead to the port of eternal felicity! Why must the love of the world be more ardent for the acquisition of the former, than the love of Jesus Christ is for the acquisition of the latter? As barbaric as these men may appear, they are diamonds, still rough in truth, but whose beauty compensates enough for the trouble it costs to polish them."

"O holy brother of my soul! What a vast field for your zeal! If the glory of the house of God touches you, go to the Indies! Go there to win so many thousands of souls who are perishing there! If you love Jesus Christ, go, oh! go to gather His blood shed upon nations that do not know its price; work with Him until death for the salvation of men...!"

Peter Claver followed the advice of his holy friend. He received from him a gift very dear to his heart: it was a few books, written by the hand of his spiritual father. After two years of theology, he obtained permission to go and work for the glory of God in the West Indies.

To travel from Barcelona to Seville, the place of embarkation, he passed so close to Verdu that he only had one league more to travel to see his parents, whose deep tenderness for him he knew, to take leave of them and bid them a final farewell; for he was not to see them again in this world. It was satisfying a very legitimate sentiment, and giving these dear parents a very permissible consolation, it is true: but it was also the occasion for a merit that would not present itself again, and our Saint did not want to lose it. He had not worked so hard until now to overcome nature only to let it triumph at this moment. He knew, moreover, that the sorrow of his pious parents would also become for them an additional merit. He passed by without seeing them and embarked in the month of April 1610. The voyage was to be long. Peter Claver wanted to sanctify every moment of it and use them for the glory of God.

He took charge of the care of the sick among the crew, whom he tended with the devotion of the most tender charity; he prepared their medicines and made them take them, wiped their faces, fed the convalescents himself, prepared the most ill to receive the Sacraments, and did not leave them day or night. Obliged to eat at the captain's table, he tried to compensate for this honor by reserving what was served to him that was most delicate for his dear sick, who were less well served than he.

His touching kindness had so well drawn all hearts to him that he had influence over everyone. He had set an hour at which all the sailors gathered to hear the explanation of the catechism, which was followed by the recitation of the rosary. No one swore anymore, no one would have dared to say an improper word in his presence, and if a sailor lost his temper when the Blessed one was absent, it was enough to calm him to say that one would speak to Fr. Claver about it.

Despite the harshness of the climate, the port of Cartagena was the meeting point for all maritime trade. It was there that slave traders deposited them and put them up for sale. It was there that other merchants went to buy and resell them in all the surrounding countries, speculating without pity, as if on vile animals, on these poor Negroes who came from the same father as they, and like them were redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Our Saint could not see these unfortunates without feeling a father's heart for them. He first obtained the favor of working for their salvation under the direction of Fr. de Sandoval, who died after having exercised this holy ministry with the greatest fruits, exhausted by fatigue, covered in ulcers, overwhelmed by pain, but even more filled with merits, and happy to leave the apostolate of the Negroes, as a holy inheritance, in the hands of Fr. Claver. Seeing himself alone in charge of this beautiful mission, our Saint dedicated his whole life to it. By means of alms, which he went to beg from door to door, he procured interpreters, went with them to the shore as soon as he learned of the arrival of a slave ship—and he always learned of it very quickly, for he had promised to offer the holy sacrifice several times for the people who would be the first to bring him this happy news, and everyone burned with the desire to obtain such an advantage. Most of the unfortunate Negroes believed that they were being torn from their homeland and their families to dye the pavilions with their blood and to careen the ships with their fat. What happiness for them to meet a friend among these Europeans who treated them with such inhumanity!

They all seemed moved when they saw this holy Priest so tenderly occupied with them, distributing the small provisions he had brought, helping them with his own hand to disembark, receiving the sick in his arms, and carrying them in the carts he had arranged for them. He did not leave them until he had led them all into the slave quarters or the lodgings intended for them. When they were all settled, the good father returned to see them in their huts, one after the other, and, after having recommended them to their masters, he promised to return as soon as possible.

He inquired about the children born during the voyage: he baptized them; then he occupied himself with the sickest, whom he prepared to receive the sacraments if they were Christians, or to receive baptism if they had not yet received it. This ministry fulfilled, he moved on to the less urgent sick and gave them care that one could call maternal. One saw him perform the most menial services for them, the most repulsive to nature, and, then resting them against his chest, he embraced them with the most compassionate affection.

He went to look for these poor slaves in the slave quarters and in the huts. These slave quarters were vast, dark, and damp warehouses where the slaves were piled pell-mell, as one would not want to pile the dirtiest animals. There, no bed, no seat, not a plank, not a blanket, nothing: the four walls, the dirt of the floor, and on this damp ground, in this kind of cellar barely lit by a few rare openings that seemed to let in only with regret a weak current of air, quite insufficient for so many chests, one saw hundreds of Negroes having barely the space necessary to stretch their bodies exhausted by the excess of work. Men and women, old people and children, the sick and the infirm, all were thrown there without the slightest feeling of pity, and in such destitution of all things that they called for death with loud cries before the charity of the holy Missionary had taught them to hope and to suffer. To this desolate situation for these unfortunates, one must add the fetid odor that exhaled from these chests, these bodies, these wounds, and one will have the measure of the repugnance that our heroic Apostle had to endure to penetrate into these places of misery and pain, of which we can only give a very imperfect idea.

There is no industry that his charity did not employ to win these poor souls to Our Lord: he knew that one could only make oneself understood by them by speaking to their senses. That is why he had composed some pictures suitable for representing our mysteries to them. Before leaving, he gave himself over to rigorous penances and then went before the Blessed Sacrament to implore divine mercy and the lights of the Holy Spirit. After his prayer, he took his staff, which ended in the shape of a cross, and with a bronze crucifix on his chest, and on his shoulder a bag containing on one side his usual small provisions for the sick, and on the other a surplus, the holy oils, and all the objects necessary to prepare an altar, he set out on his way with the brother who was to accompany him and who could barely follow him, so much did the ardor of his charity accelerate his pace.

Upon his arrival, he first occupied himself with the sick, whose faces he washed with scented waters in order to attenuate the strength of the foul exhalations that infected the air; after which he gave them all the care that we have seen him lavish on the newly landed, administered those who were in danger, and left them all penetrated by this excess of charity that brought them such sweet consolations. The Blessed one then went to the agreed-upon place to teach the catechism to those who were not held back by work or illness.

It sometimes happened that, among the slaves, there were some whose ulcers were an object of disgust for the others; then the charitable Apostle put them together and covered them with his own cloak. And when he did not have the occasion to use it for this purpose, he made it into a seat for the infirm so that they would be seated less harshly. Often he would find it in such a disgusting state that one was forced to wash it several times to manage to clean it imperfectly. Even then, one obtained permission to do so with difficulty. The mortification of the Blessed one was such that he would have put his cloak back on in the state in which it was returned to him then, had his interpreters not prevented him.

The holy Apostle was not content with taking souls away from the devil; he worked with the same care to preserve them for Jesus Christ; he watched over them continually, as a good father does for his family. He remained for whole hours in the public square to collect alms; he then went, with the bag on his back, to distribute them in the slave quarters or the huts, helping the souls even more than the bodies. On feast days, he went to fetch his dear children himself and led them to the college church to have them hear Mass. He never met any in the streets without addressing words of edification to them. He often said to the old people, with the accent of authority: "Think, my friend, that the house is already old, and that it threatens to collapse! Confess yourself while you have the time and the opportunity." To the sinners he threw these formidable words in passing: "God counts your sins! The first one you commit will perhaps be the last!" It did not take more than that to convert a great number; others were won to God by his mere sight; seized by an irresistible remorse, one saw them run to him, throw themselves at his feet, ask for his blessing, beg him to forgive them, and promise him to live more Christianly. The Negroes always went first to Father Claver's confessional; he gently pushed away people of distinction: "Senor," he said to the men, "you will not lack confessors in the city; I am the one for the poor." And addressing the women: "Senora, look at my confessional; it is much too narrow for the fullness of your dresses; only poor Negresses can enter it; go to another, I am the confessor of the slaves." But several did not get discouraged, and, counting on the charity of the Blessed one, they waited patiently until the crowd of Negroes had passed, and then obtained the favor they desired. The fatigue of this sustained work, the odor and the heat brought by such an agglomeration of Negroes, the stings of the mosquitoes, which he let devour him without ever driving them away, the rough hair shirt that covered him entirely—all these sufferings combined overwhelmed the tireless Apostle; he often fell unconscious. In the evening, one had to receive him in one's arms and carry him to the refectory, where he took, to restore his strength, only a piece of bread with a few grilled potatoes. Returned to his room, he relaxed from his day of labor with bloody disciplines and at least two hours of prayer, often much more; he had been working like this for six years when, towards the end of the year 1622, he received the order to prepare to make his final vows. He was at first covered with confusion, because he regarded himself as unworthy of the dignity of a professed member: but he soon saw in it a means of binding himself forever to his dear Negroes; he went to throw himself at the feet of the superior and expressed his desire to add to the ordinary vows that of serving the slaves until death. This favor was granted to him to second the views of God upon him. He signed the formula of these vows: "Peter, slave of the Negroes forever." Thus, from now on, he no longer has the right to have a heart except to love them, no more strength except to serve them. Let us see some traits of all the virtues that he pushed to the last heroism during the forty years of his admirable apostolate: his greatest charity was fo Pierre, esclave des nègres pour toujours Disciple and friend of Alphonsus Rodriguez. r the sick and the dying; if someone came at night to ask for a Father to assist them at the last moment, he always wanted it to be him: "Call me at any hour whatsoever," he said to the porter, "those who work a lot need rest; but for me, who do so little here, I do not need it."

No matter how long the illness lasted, his zeal never tired. A poor Negro remained an invalid for fourteen years, and for fourteen years the charitable Father lavished the most tender care upon him: he would take him in his arms and lay him gently on his cloak; he would make his bed, then lay him back down with the same care, after having affectionately kissed him. God helped or consoled his zeal by revealing to him the danger of his dear Negroes near death, or the fate of their souls having departed this world. A poor Indian woman, abandoned in a hut, was breathing her last; the Father appeared, found her without a pulse, without movement: she was cold... he began to pray, his fatherly heart bleeding cruelly!... Soon the sick woman regained life, but only as much as was necessary for the holy Apostle to prepare her to receive baptism; as soon as she was thus purified, her soul left the earth to return to God.

The Blessed one had one day spent an entire afternoon visiting the sick, he was returning to the college, overwhelmed with fatigue, when suddenly he stopped, heaved a deep sigh: "My brother," he said to the one accompanying him, "let us go this way; let us enter this house, we will not be there long." He went and entered a dwelling where two poor women, bursting into tears, received him with the gratitude they would have shown to a saving angel: "Where is the sick woman?" asked the good Father. They led him into a small room, where he found a woman at the point of death. He exhorted her, confessed her, gave her absolution, and she died.

Called to a sick woman whom he usually visited, Father Claver learned that she had just died. Deeply distressed at not having arrived in time to confess her, he prayed with tears, conjuring the divine mercy to forgive him for this involuntary delay and asking for grace for the soul to whom he had not been able to give the last rites. But suddenly he stood up, his face radiant with happiness: "Such a death," he said to the grieving family who surrounded him, "such a death is more worthy of our envy than our tears. This soul is condemned to only twenty-four hours of purgatory; let us try to shorten her suffering through the ardor of our prayers." And, quite astonished by what he had just said, the humble Father hastened to leave, embarrassed by the opinion he was leaving of himself.

The objects of his preference were the sick who inspired an invincible repulsion in others. Living only to make nature die within him, he eagerly seized every means to overcome it, or rather to maintain it under the dominion of grace, which he received with all the more abundance as he seconded it more; he remained where, for lack of vital air, due to the foul and deleterious miasmas exhaled by smallpox, sores, and a host of other diseases, several Jesuits could only pass through or fainted after an instant; and when nature threatened to weaken, here is how he crushed it without pity: Called one day to the home of Don Ignatio Torme, a wealthy shipowner, to confess a Negro entirely covered in ulcers, and who had been thrown into the most remote place so as to have neither the smell nor the sight of him, the holy Jesuit was spied upon in this work of sublime devotion by the shipowner and four Spaniards, his friends, eager to contemplate the extraordinary charity of which they had been told so much. Placed at a distance and unable to be seen, they did not miss any of the Blessed one's movements.

The holy Apostle, at first glance, was seized with horror!... He was about to recoil!... but instantly he stopped, embarrassed by his cowardice... He moved away from the sick man, went to prostrate himself and groan before God for not knowing how to serve a brother redeemed at the price of the blood of Jesus Christ. He gave himself a harsh discipline and returned to the sick man. He advanced on his knees to him, he kissed all his sores, confessed this poor Negro, and spent a few moments near him, consoling him with the expression of the most tender affection. The heroic Apostle withdrew more humiliated than ever by his lack of virtue, and well persuaded that he had lacked charity at the first moment. The shipowner and his friends, filled with veneration for the Blessed one, would have gone at that moment to throw themselves at his feet to ask for his blessing, had they not feared admitting their pious indiscretion.

God rewarded with miracles this charity, which was itself like a permanent miracle. The brother and the interpreter who accompanied him could not bear the repulsive odor that filled a hut: they fled. What was their surprise, upon returning, to breathe pure and fresh air near a dying man covered in ulcers?

He healed a Negress by placing his cloak on her: the savages who had disembarked in the morning asked to know a religion that performs such wonders and received the grace of baptism. Baptism also became in his hands a means of healing. A young slave, dangerously ill, had been told that if he could, while the good Father was confessing him, touch only his rosary, while asking the good God to heal him, because of all the good the good Father did for the Negroes, he would be healed. He did it, and was healed. Several slaves having been struck by lightning, Father Claver arrived, led by a heavenly inspiration; and, seeing the unfortunate ones lying without life, he raised his eyes and hands toward heaven, and obtained their resurrection from the Father of mercies.

One day, the entire house of Don Francisco de Sylva was in great agitation: a slave had been found lying on the ground without movement; the doctor, like everyone else, judged that she had died of a lightning-fast apoplexy. Father Claver, learning of this event, rushed to Don Francisco's home, who said to him upon seeing him: "Ah! my Father, she was not baptized! What a misfortune! and who could have foreseen it!" — "Eh what!" said the Blessed one, "is the arm of God then shortened? He is a good Father! Come, a little faith and confidence in him!... Where is the slave?" — "Come, my Father." And Don Francisco led him to the corpse. Father Claver addressed a short and fervent prayer to God; then he called the dead woman and asked her if she wanted to be baptized. Immediately she opened her eyes: "Oh! yes, my Father, I want it with all my heart!" The good Father baptized her, and immediately she rose in full health.

Another prodigy resulted in a way from this one. Father Claver had forbidden the throwing away of the water that had been used for the baptism of the Negress. A servant, ignorant of this prohibition, threw it into a vase where some plants had been withered for one to six months. A few days later, these plants turned green again and produced flowers of rare beauty and the most exquisite perfume.

These teachings were admirably supported by the master's own examples: the novices asserted that Father Claver never required of them anything other than what he practiced in the most perfect manner. But our holy Apostle did not cut back on his outside occupations: it was therefore necessary to relieve him of the novitiate so that he could devote himself entirely to his charity and his zeal. The sick at the Saint-Sebastian hospital were no longer enough for him. He went to care for and console the lepers of the Sa hospice Saint-Lazare Place where the saint cared for lepers. int-Lazare hospice. During the days of Carnival, a Spanish officer met him outside the city, running along quite joyfully: "Hey! My good Father, where are you going so cheerfully?" he asked him. — "Dear senior, I am going to celebrate my carnival with my lepers of Saint-Lazare," this other Vincent de Paul replied with gaiety. He would gather them at the door of the church, exhorting them to avoid the leprosy of sin, a thousand times more horrible in the eyes of God than theirs could be in the eyes of men; then, sitting on a stone, he would hear their confessions. If the weather was cold, he would cover the penitent with his cloak; if he saw him too suffering, too tired, he would have him rest his head on his knees, support him with his arm, or hold him gently pressed against his chest. He had a marked predilection for the lepers whom their more hideous wounds had caused to be relegated to separate lodges. These poor unfortunates, who no longer had arms, the good, heroic Father would feed, and, if suffering took away their appetite or the courage to accept the food he offered them, to excite and encourage them, he would go so far as to take a piece from the same dish and eat it before them. He did what a mother does for her young son.

The hospice church was falling into ruins; he managed to find workers, materials, and money to rebuild it. He did more; he worked himself, carrying wood, stones, earth, everything that was heaviest. They sent him his meals from the Jesuit college; but, as he did not want to be better fed among his sick than they were themselves, he distributed to them, in turn, what was brought to him; and, to satisfy his spirit of mortification, as well as his charity, when his lepers had finished, he would take back the dish and eat their leftovers!

A Spanish fleet brought English and Dutch prisoners before Cartagena, with orders not to touch land or leave the galleon under any pretext. Father Claver, who chased after souls to save as if after holy prey, asked for and obtained permission to work for the conversion of the heretics. He soon won the heart of an English prelate, who had the happiness and courage to convert; his example was soon followed: rebellious to the grace that enlightened them, several heretics, it is true, lacking arguments, overwhelmed the holy Apostle with insults, struck him, and tore his clothes. But their very violence became an occasion for their salvation; for they saw something supernatural in the gentleness of Father Claver; his patience, in the midst of outrages, conquered them: more than six hundred abandoned error. The Dutch found health of the soul in the sickness of the body. An epidemic having broken out among them, they were transported to the Saint-Sebastian hospital; there they were caught in the nets of our Blessed one's charity. Seeing themselves cared for as they would have been by the hands of a mother, all asked to be Catholic, all never ceased repeating that Father Claver's religion was the best, since it did so much good.

With the same weapons, he made the same conquests among the many Muslims who were in Cartagena. Some, however, cost him very hard mortifications, very long prayers, and very bitter tears! But God always ended up granting him the salvation of the souls he bought at this price, and often He performed wonders to give him this consolation, after having sometimes made him wait several years. Among the poor who came to the college door to receive the alms distributed by Father Claver was a Turk of an intractable nature, insensitive to kindness, hard, even cruel: Ahmet only responded to the good Father's care with insults and outrages, and yet the best part of the alms was always for Ahmet. Ahmet was the holy Jesuit's favorite beggar, because he was a subject of merit for him, and because it was a soul very difficult to win. This struggle of Ahmet's ingratitude against Father Claver's charity had been going on for many years when, one morning, long before the distribution of alms, the poor Muslim came to fall at the feet of the holy Jesuit: "My Father! Forgive me, I cannot resist so much kindness! Instruct me, my Father, make me a Christian. Your religion makes one better than that of the Prophet!"

The most desperate, the most impious souls, frenetics, and apostates could not resist the tender charity of our Blessed one. It is true that his incomparable compassion recoiled before nothing, not even miracles. One of his patients having a desire to eat fruits that were out of season, Father Claver brought him some of the freshest and most beautiful that had ever been seen in the country: the prior had inquiries made throughout the city and its surroundings, and he became convinced that the Saint could only have obtained the fruits from God alone. One day, while he was distributing his alms in a hall of the Saint-Sebastian hospice, heaven wished to glorify him on the very stage of his virtues: a dazzling light was seen surrounding his head and spreading over his face with a marvelous radiance: when, filled with veneration, one approached to kiss the hand that, in doing so much good, deserved so much glory, he had disappeared: his humility had obtained a second miracle to escape the applause that the first had drawn to him. His zeal could not be satisfied as long as there remained a soul to save, a misery to alleviate, a heart to console. He also wanted to occupy himself with the prisons of Cartagena, to penetrate into all the dungeons, to visit every prisoner.

There, as everywhere, he made admirable conquests for God. He subjected the most formidable criminals to his irresistible and gentle influence; he converted the most hardened sinners; he conquered the most rebellious natures. All the prisoners cherished him: one heard neither blasphemy, nor impiety, nor swearing in the prisons of Cartagena. The Blessed one had banished all that; all confessed regularly, and prayers were said in common every day.

The Blessed one had a particular grace for softening for criminals the horror of the death sentence that weighed upon them. They climbed the gallows with joy, blessing the divine Mercy that gave them such a means of expiation: their death seemed an object worthy of envy. When their soul had departed toward the eternal reward due to their repentance, instruments of penance were found on their bodies, which they had used to expiate their crimes themselves: which was a subject of great edification.

But it is time to go to the source of such holiness, to penetrate into the soul of our Blessed one, which was like the sanctuary of all virtues. We cannot better paint his love for God than by saying that he was continually united to Him; while walking in the streets, he saw nothing, he heard nothing. He followed the voice, the interior light that led him; he went where God called him. All the moments he could dispose of were for prayer; which made Fr. Sebastian de Morillo, rector of the college, say: "I have never been able to know the moment when Fr. Claver finishes his prayer. At whatever hour I enter his room, I find him in prayer and so lost in God that he neither sees nor hears me." He took two or three hours of sleep, never more; and even this rest was interrupted by burning aspirations toward God.

He often appeared surrounded by a halo of light, the brilliance of which eyes could not bear. Once, when someone entered his room after bedtime, it was found filled with a dazzling brightness. They searched in vain for the Saint; finally, they perceived him in the air, his knees bent as if they were resting on the ground, and his crucifix in his hands. He descended gently toward the floor with the daylight.

His dearest attraction was the Passion of Our Lord; he had small images that represented the mystery; he pressed in his hands the one that recalled the mystery he wished to meditate upon, and from this consideration he rose insensibly to the most sublime contemplation. On days when his exterior occupations left him a few moments of freedom, he would go to make a station at a large crucifix placed in the most secluded part of the house, and several times he was heard pronouncing burning words of love there, while he believed himself absolutely unknown to all the religious. It was ascertained that every Friday he mysteriously left his room in the middle of the night, wearing a rope around his neck, a crown of thorns on his head, and a cross on his shoulders; he would go to the most solitary places in the house to make as many stations as Our Lord made during His passion before arriving at Calvary.

Our Blessed one loved to speak of the unspeakable sufferings of the divine Savior; he spoke of them often, and always with tears of gratitude and love that delighted those who had the happiness of hearing him. During Holy Week, his face bore the imprint of such great sorrow that even the most indifferent were deeply impressed, and saw in him the living image of Jesus going to Calvary to expiate all the sins of the world.

When the negroes were sick, and the Blessed one had to bring them the holy Viaticum, he would first go to sweep and clean their hut himself; he would perfume it and place on their bed a silk bedspread, which he had been given for this use, in order to show more respect for the presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and to make all the negroes present better understand the necessity of this respect. And, despite his immense occupations, he confessed every morning with great sorrow and an abundance of tears; then he spent half an hour before the altar to prepare to ascend it. He offered the holy Sacrifice with a seraphic fervor by which those present were moved to tears.

After God, it was the divine Mary whom the Blessed one loved most tenderly. He carried on his chest a small book of meditations on the mysteries of the life of the Blessed Virgin: small engravings represented each of these mysteries. The Blessed one often looked at them with love, kissed them, pressed them to his heart, and habitually meditated upon them; he called Mary the Mother of fair love. He was often heard repeating in the midst of his raptures: "O good Mother! teach me, I implore you, teach me to love your divine Son! Obtain for me a spark of that pure love with which your heart always burns for Him!... or lend me yours, so that I may receive Him worthily within me!"

On the eve of the feasts of the Blessed Virgin, Peter Claver prepared to celebrate them with an increase of bodily penances. In the afternoon, he would hear the confessions of the school children, to inspire in them early the love of Mary. The next day, he took part in the dinner he served to his poor beggars at the door of the college, during which he had music played to cheer them, he said, in honor of Mary; after the dinner, or the little feast of his poor, as he called it, he would give them an exhortation on the feast, then he would recite the rosary to which everyone responded.

Our Blessed one had such great devotion to the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin that he often congratulated her, with tears of consolation, on these two privileges; he loved to speak of them to those who had the happiness of possessing his confidence; and it even happened once, at a friend's house, that he forgot himself to the point of rapture. Not content with imploring the protection of his guardian angel, of Saint Peter, his patron, and of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, whom he called his father, he had also chosen twenty-four Saints to protect him at every hour of the day and night, so that, he said, there would not be a single hour of his life where he did not feel supported near God by a particular advocate.

His charity for his neighbor followed him beyond this life. He offered the holy Sacrifice, increased his penances, and imagined new mortifications for the relief of the souls in purgatory; he asked for the prayers of the pious faithful for them, and tried to make his negroes understand well the necessity of praying for their deceased brothers.

One could call his life a continual martyrdom. Each part of his life was a suffering that he united to that of his Savior on the cross. During the forty-four years he lived in the Society of Jesus, he never allowed himself a single look of curiosity. The beauty of the countryside, the very adornment of the altars, such innocent spectacles, he deprived his eyes of them. His room had a view of the port: he did not open it once, he did not even dare to look through the panes at the arrival of the fleets that made the entire city run, recognizing no other homeland than heaven. The news from Spain could only be indifferent to him; he only inquired if there were sick people on the arriving ships, and sometimes also if the Christian princes were at peace. His meals resembled the light collation one takes for the most rigorous fasts. He refused meat, saying it was too nourishing for his constitution; he slept on a simple mat or on an ox hide: a piece of wood served as his pillow. For several years he even contented himself with the bare earth, and when he was sick, he would get out of his bed at night to lie on the floor. He regularly gave himself three disciplines until blood was drawn. He wore two roughly carved wooden crosses: one on his back, the second on his chest; each part of his body had a particular instrument of penance. This garment of sorrow was completed by a crown of thorns and gloves that he had made himself with small horsehair ropes; it was always in this way that he recited his breviary; and, to humble himself further before the divine Majesty, he then added a rope to his neck, as worn by a criminal condemned by human justice.

Nothing equaled his angelic patience in enduring everything that could be painful or disagreeable to him. Some young Spaniards, irritated by his reforms, threatened the life of the holy Apostle; they pushed their fury to the point of throwing themselves upon him with dagger in hand: "If it is the will of God that I die," he said to them with gentleness, "here is my life, you can take it." They were immediately disarmed and converted. One of his superiors did not cease to test him to ensure his virtue; he went so far as to tell him that he was an ignoramus, that he did not even know Latin. The holy Religious kept silent; and as they insisted, he only opened his mouth to admit that they were right, that he was an ignoramus. Later, he was asked why he had not said a word to justify himself, he whose capacity was well known: "It matters little," he replied, "to pass for learned or ignorant; but it matters much to be humble and obedient."

Everything, in Fr. Claver and around him, proved how much he loved the holy poverty that he called his mother. For some years, he had no other room than a dark, narrow, inconvenient closet, from which he was obliged to leave in order to be able to write. Constantly conforming himself to his divine Master, who did not even have a stone to rest His head, he always arranged things so as to take for his own use what was considered out of service. The most worn, the most mended clothes were for him; it required an order from his superior to determine him to renew them. He was fastidious even in the smallest things to satisfy his love of poverty.

He took all the candle ends, even the shortest ones, for his own private use; he never wanted a whole candle. He wrote on the backs of useless papers and used only pen nibs already worn by the other Fathers. He collected the remains of bread to feed himself preferably. Often, in the afternoon, he would return still fasting and overwhelmed with fatigue, finding nothing to eat because the cook had forgotten him. This oversight seemed quite natural to him, and he excused the Brother to the one who blamed him.

Our Blessed one carried the practice of obedience as far as that of poverty. Quite certain of doing the will of God by doing that of his superiors, he was happy to obey with the most complete abandonment. After his death, all his thoughts on holy obedience were found in his papers, contained in these few lines: "In religious life, the shortest and surest road to arrive at perfection is that of obedience to superiors. I rely more on a single word of theirs than on a hundred private revelations."

He also said: "One cannot decide well for oneself, one cannot see oneself well, one cannot judge oneself well. One therefore needs the eyes and the judgment of another." A superior, to test his obedience, although he was very old and infirm, reprimanded him severely for an insignificant thing, and ordered him to remain on his knees. The Saint obeyed and waited more than an hour for permission to rise. He never did his own will, but always that which he could consider to be the will of God. In the absence of true superiors, he obeyed equals, even inferiors. If he had to work in the kitchen, he would uncover his head before the cook and humbly ask for his orders. If he had only a simple negro as a companion in his missions, he obeyed him in everything. All these virtues received their brilliance from humility, which stripped them of everything earthly they might have had. "The humble man," he said in a few words written by his own hand and found after his death, "desires that those who make him suffer be persuaded, not that he is humble, but that he is indeed despicable."

He had, all his life, the lowest sentiments of himself, as was seen on a thousand occasions; when it happened that he was asked for advice on an important matter, he replied: "I am not capable of giving an opinion on that; see the Fathers of the college, they have more science and wisdom than I. I am only good for the slaves and for the poor." When he was asked to pray for a matter, he replied: "A good way to make it fail!" Perhaps, says his historian, one would accuse him of lacking dignity. That is true, very true, he absolutely lacked the sentiment that the world decorates with that name, and which is nothing other than one of the thousand disguises of pride. Father Claver knew no other dignity, for the Christian, than his resemblance to the divine Model, whose adorable face was covered with ignominies, whose crown was composed of thorns, whose scepter was a reed, whose throne was a cross.

The Spouse of souls, however holy that of Father Claver was, wished to purify it further through very particular sufferings before calling it to Himself; having been struck by the plague that was ravaging Cartagena, the Blessed remained an invalid until the end of his earthly life. His greatest suffering was undoubtedly not being able to consume himself in the service of his neighbor: he was reduced to seeing himself served. He had to be fed by having food brought to his mouth; he had to be lifted, put to bed, dressed; he had to be supported to walk. But this did not prevent him from having himself carried to the confessional, where he remained until he fell exhausted and unconscious. He still visited the hospitals; when he felt it was for the last time, he embraced his dear lepers, bade them the tenderest farewells, and commended himself to their prayers. The Negro who had been given to him to care for him was of a savage nature, almost heartless and unintelligent; this was the instrument God used to test the patience of His servant at every moment: his mood, his brusqueness, became a torment for the holy Apostle, who responded to his excesses of harshness only with excesses of tenderness. When the Negro, instead of two candles, brought only one for the night, a miracle made it last until dawn. For the Saint hardly slept anymore, and, spending every night conversing with God, he desired to have light in his room, to give himself the sweet consolation of seeing his crucifix and the objects of piety that surrounded him.

Towards the middle of the year 1654, Father Claver said to Brother Gonzalès, who was very fond of him: "I will die soon, and it will certainly be on a feast day of the Blessed Virgin." He had a request sent to Doña Isabella d'Urbina, his spiritual daughter, whom he associated with all his good works, to send him her sedan chair so that he could go see her. Arrived at her home, he said to her: "My daughter, this is the last time I come to hear your confession; I am going to die soon. Our Lord has had the kindness to promise me that I would die on the day of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin."

The day before this beautiful feast, while our Blessed was speaking of his death with Brother Gonzalès, he expressed the desire to be buried at the door of the church in front of his confessional, so as to be, so to speak, trampled underfoot after his death, as he would have liked to be during his life.

The brother put his humility to a severe test by asking him how many Negroes he had baptized during his apostolate? Father Claver reflected for a moment and could not help but say with a kind of embarrassment: "I believe I have baptized more than three hundred thousand." On September 7, when the nurse entered, he found the holy Jesuit motionless. The calm of his face, the serenity of the smile remaining on his lips, the heavenly expression of the whole, made one believe at first that he was plunged into a sweet ecstasy, but it was soon noticed that he was about to leave the earth. The Community pressed around him to see how Saints die: the whole city of Cartagena asked to be a witness to this beautiful spectacle; the intention at first was to let only the principal personages enter, but the door was besieged by the crowd which redoubled its cries: "We want to see the Saint! We want to see him before he is dead. He is our father, he is ours, we want to see him!" The room was invaded and pillaged, for everyone wanted a relic of the Blessed. They left him only the blanket placed over him and the portrait of his holy friend, Brother Rodriguez, which a religious defended to the end. They kissed his hands, they invoked him aloud amidst tears and sobs. The Negroes discovered his sacred feet and, kissing them with an inexpressible tenderness, they repeated that they were losing everything in losing "the good father of the Negroes, who was going away with the good God, and who was not taking them with him."

After midnight, the Blessed sank noticeably. The recommendation of the soul was made, and as soon as it was finished, while the weeping assistants repeated the names of Jesus and Mary, between one and two in the morning, on Tuesday, September 8, the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, the holy Apostle departed to occupy in heaven the place that had been shown to Father Rodriguez. His body seemed to regain the color of life immediately after his death: it exhaled an odor so sweet and so extraordinary that it penetrated the soul.

The city of Cartagena bore the costs of the funeral: there was a gathering such as one perhaps does not encounter in the life of any other Saint. It was necessary to have recourse to public force to prevent the holy body from being torn to pieces.

He performed two miracles in favor of those he had loved most on earth. His dear spiritual son, the Duke of Estrada, brother-in-law of Doña Isabella d'Urbina, having obtained the favor of placing the palm in the hand of the Blessed, the hand opened of its own accord and grasped it, and, when his cherished Negroes came to surround him in tears, asking him not to forget them, to bless them, to pray for them, to be their good father always, an embalmed sweat spread over his face: "It is for us," they cried, "it is for us that the good Father is sweating! He wants us to have relics of him. They would not have given us any! But he loves us! Thank you, good Father!" Speaking thus, they collected this sweat like a heavenly dew with cloths that they shared among themselves as the greatest of treasures.

In the first month of the year 1657, the coffin was opened, where the precious remains of Father Claver had been enclosed. Despite the humidity and the lime with which he had been surrounded, he was found entirely sound. The flesh had the firmness and freshness of life: he was declared venerable in 1747 by Benedict XIV; finally, on July 16, 1850, the Sovereign Pontiff Pius IX placed him in the rank of the Blessed. The ceremony of beatification took place in the Church of Saint Peter in th e Vati Pie IX Pope who canonized Josaphat in 1867. can, on September 21, 1851.

He is painted surrounded by Negroes whom he baptizes, catechizes, directs, blesses, or administers to, because his great occupation in Cartagena was to teach the principles and practice of religion to the poor African slaves.

We have drawn this account from the History of the Blessed Father Claver, by M. d'Anrignac.