Saint Anthony Mary Claret
Founder of the Claretian Fathers and the Sisters of Mary Immaculate (1807-1870)
Feast – October 23
Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us.” The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply, “Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:39-43)
Martin Luther (1483–1546), German leader of the great religious revolt of the sixteenth century had no fear of God. His master the devil cleverly called the revolt a reformation, but anybody wishing to reform the Catholic Church must reform Our Lord Jesus Christ, the head of the Catholic Church. As ridiculous as this sounds, over the last two thousand years of Christianity many attempted to do so.
To combat this insurgency a revival of the Catholic faith called the Counter-Reformation began in 1560 at the behest of Pope Pius IV. Forty-two years later, on June 22nd, 1622, the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda was founded by Pope Gregory XV. Its mission was to evangelize the world.
Over the years, many great preachers joined the Congregation of Propaganda. Among them is St. Anthony Mary Claret.
The beginning of wisdom is fear of the LORD, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. (Proverbs 9:10)
Anthony Maria Claret was born in Sallent, in the county of Bages in the Province of Barcelona, Spain on December 23rd, 1807. He was the fifth of eleven children born to Juan and Josefa Claret. His father was a woolen textile manufacturer. St. Anthony was a very pious child enjoying pilgrimages to the nearby Shrine of Our Lady of Fussimanya. Already at the age of five, he was thinking about eternal life. He later wrote “my little heart trembled at the thought of hell, and I said to myself: Will those who fall into hell never stop suffering? No, never. Will they always suffer? Yes, always. This thought remained profoundly engraved in my mind, and I can say that it is ever present to me. That is what has animated me to work for the conversion of sinners. Why? Because I received [from God] so tender a heart that I cannot see a misfortune without assisting it.”
St. Claret received an elementary education in his native village, and at the age of twelve became a weaver. In 1804 Joseph-Marie Jacquard, a French weaver and merchant, patented a machine revolutionizing the woven process of patterned cloth which made it possible for complex and detailed patterns to be manufactured by unskilled workers in a fraction of the time it took a master weaver and his assistants working manually, so at the age of eighteen, St. Claret went to Barcelona to specialize in his trade as a Jacquard loom programmer.
While there, he became frightened that his love of programming was causing him to become obsessed and burned out. “All the efforts I made not to voluntarily entertain thoughts of my trade were in vain; I was like a wheel turning with great speed, which cannot be stopped all at once… There were more machines running in my head than there are Saints on the altars”- he wrote later.
By the age of 20, recognizing a call to the religious life he left Barcelona. First, he wished to become a Carthusian monk but eventually entered the local diocesan seminary at city of Vic in 1829. Ordained on June 13th, 1835, on the feast of St. Anthony of Padua, he received a benefice in his native parish, where he continued to study theology until 1839. Since missionary work strongly appealed to him, he went to Rome to place himself at the disposition of the Congregation of Propaganda. Advised by the director of a retreat he entered the Society of Jesus, but had to leave it because of poor health.
Recalled by his superiors to Vic, St. Claret was sent as an Apostolic Missionary throughout Catalonia, which had suffered from French invasions.
He travelled from one mission to the next on foot. An eloquent preacher fluent in the Catalan language, he drew people from miles around. After a lengthy time in the pulpit, he would spend long hours in the confessional. He was said to have had the gift of discernment of consciences. His missions were so well attended that he often preached from an improvised pulpit in the plaza before the church. In 1848 he founded a publishing house at Barcelona, and soon afterwards on July 16th, 1849, on the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, established his Claretian congregation, the Congregation of the Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The six priests of this Congregation had just received the formal approbation of the bishop of Vich, and completed a retreat at the Seminary with the Exercises of Saint Ignatius. On August 11th, while their new Superior was preaching a mission to the clergy of the diocese, he received a royal decree. Pope Pius IX, at the request of the Spanish crown (Queen-regnant Isabella II of Spain), appointed him Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba. He was consecrated at Vic in October 1850. Before he embarked, he made three separate pilgrimages: to Our Lady of the Pillar, patroness of Spain; to the Virgin of Montserrat, patroness of Catalonia; and to Our Lady of Fussimanya, near his home village.
For six years St. Claret dedicated himself to the organization and evangelization of his diocese. Three times he made a visitation of the entire diocese, giving to local missions incessantly. The Santiago seminary was reorganized, clerical discipline strengthened, and over 9,000 marriages validated within the first two years of his arrival. He erected a hospital and numerous schools. With help of Maria Antonia Paris he founded the Sisters of Mary Immaculate, dedicated to the instruction of the young. This was the first female religious institute in Cuba. A School of the Arts and Trades was opened there, and Latin America saw established its first common funds resources. Abuses vanished under his strict and persevering disciplinary measures. His solution for the misery of Cubans was family-owned farms producing a variety of foods for the family’s own needs and for the market. Besides all his religious writings are two books he wrote in Cuba: Reflections on Agriculture and Country Delights.
His work stirred up opposition and at the city of Holguín an attempt was made on his life. He was severely wounded; his face and wrist slashed open which limited his preaching capacity for a time, and he was recalled to Spain, summoned by Queen Isabella II to replace her deceased confessor.
St. Claret was an exceptional preacher with incredible charisma: witnesses said his body would become transfigured while preaching or in prayer, he would levitate up to six feet off the ground at times in front of credible witnesses, and he stopped a series of earthquakes in Cuba by kneeling on the ground and placing his palms to the earth while uttering prayers. He could calm terrible storms by raising a hand to the sky and blessing the storm clouds, he experienced apparitions of both Jesus and Mary, and was even seen walking on water. In addition, a supernatural light that radiated from his body while he was saying Mass was seen by many. It was so intense at times that one witness said he saw the light radiate from his body behind the altar all the way to the sacristy. Queen Isabella of Spain even produced a written statement solemnly declaring that she had personally witnessed this phenomenon.
On September 3rd, 1859, St. Claret claimed he had heard Jesus tell him that there were three great evils that were descending upon mankind: the first was a series of enormous, horrifying wars; the second, the four powerful demons of pleasure, love of money, false reasoning and a will separate from God. Finally, in addition to a grievance he had with certain Christians who had left the church, Jesus told Claret that the third chastisement would be brought about by Communism.
He continued to travel to various places on the Spanish peninsula preaching. In 1862, from September 12th until October 29th, during one royal visitation, one of the Queen’s servants counted the sermons he had given — two hundred and five: 16 to the clergy, nine to the seminarians; 95 to the various groups of Sisters; thirty-five to the poor in the various houses of charity; and twenty-two others to the people in general in the churches. He created the Academy of Saint Michael for the Catholic intellectuals, called to sustain the influence of the Church. He founded popular libraries and saw to the diffusion of good literature. He accompanied the exiled Queen to Rome and took part in the First Vatican Council in 1869. Finally, he settled in France, where he died in 1870.
In his autobiography St. Anthony Mary Claret wrote “A son of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a man who is consumed with love and who sets on fire everything in his path. He is a man who unceasingly expends himself to light the fire of divine love in the world. Nothing stops him; he places his joy in privations, he undertakes all works for the glory of God; he embraces willingly every sacrifice, he is happy in the midst of calumnies; he exults in torments. He can think of but one thing — working, suffering, and seeking at all times the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls, to imitate Our Lord Jesus Christ.”
References and Excerpts:
[1] “St. Anthony Mary Claret, Bishop and Founder | The Holy Ones.” Accessed: Oct. 28, 2023. [Online]. Available: https://vitaesanctorum.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/st-anthony-mary-claret-bishop-and-founder/
[2] “Saint Anthony-Mary Claret, Founder of the Claretian Fathers and the Sisters of Mary Immaculate.” Accessed: Oct. 28, 2023. [Online]. Available: https://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_anthony-mary_claret.html
[3] “Saint Anthony Mary Claret | Franciscan Media.” Accessed: Oct. 28, 2023. [Online]. Available: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-anthony-mary-claret/
[4] “Anthony Mary Claret,” Wikipedia. Oct. 24, 2023. Accessed: Oct. 28, 2023. [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anthony_Mary_Claret&oldid=1181687087#In_popular_culture
[5] “CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Sacred Congregation of Propaganda.” Accessed: Oct. 28, 2023. [Online]. Available: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12456a.htm