October 24th is the Optional Memorial of Saint Anthony Mary Claret (1807-1870), Bishop. Anthony was born in 1807 in Sallent, Catalonia, northeastern corner of Spain. He was the fifth son of eleven children. His father owned a small woolen textile factory, but was not rich. Anthony was exceptional even as a child he had a rare disposition and charitable nature, in which could not bear seeing misfortune or misery without doing something to help. At the age of 5 he had thought about the endless horrible suffering of those he rejected God, forever and ever they will have to bear their pain.” He had a strong belief that Christ wanted all men and women to enjoy eternal life. He began school in his native village at the age of 6 and was a diligent student. He received good catechetical training in his elementary education, which fostered his desire to become a priest. However, these were economically hard times for Spain and Anthonys parents could not afford to enroll their son in seminary after his elementary schooling was completed. So at the age of 12 he began working as an apprentice weaver. When he was 17 years old his father sent him to learn more by study the latest techniques in textile manufacturing and to work in the large textile mills in Barcelona. Anthony devoted his spare time studying Latin, French and engraving, all in which he became proficient. Anthony was talented and he became renown and obtained a position in the business community of that city. However, all of this totally eclipsed his priestly vocation. The challenges of the trade and his success became strong distractions even in his spiritual life. Even though he attended Mass on all feasts and holy days of obligation, daily prayed the Rosary and kept up his other devotions, he lost his former fervor. Anthony would take walks along the seashore to find relief from the strain of his work. One day in the summer of 1826 while he waded into the ocean, a huge wave suddenly engulfed him and carried him out into the deep. He was helpless as he could not swim, yet somehow he kept afloat on the water’s surface. He called out to the Blessed Virgin Mary for help and suddenly found himself safely back on shore! Anthony shook uncontrollably as he realized that the worldly affairs which occupied his total attention and to which he had become attached were the sea of peril! The words of Christ in the Gospel resounding in his heart: What good is it for a man to win the world if he loses his soul? It was like an arrow that wounded him. Guilt seared his conscience and he became convinced that through careless neglect of the precious gift of a calling to the priesthood, he had shown gross ingratitude to God. Thus resolved to make full restitution, Anthony, realizing the emptiness of worldly achievements, he turned down business offers and returned home when he was 20 years old to pursue Religious life. Anthony desired to be a Carthusian monk so as to live the solitary life and its rigorous penitential existence. So in preparation to enter the Carthusian Charterhouse he began practicing harsh asceticism with his confessor’s approval, which he would continue and increase throughout all his life. To prepare for seminary he also studied Latin. After a year of studies and being 21 years old, he decided to pursue his first desire for the monastic life, so he left for a nearby monastery. On the way there, he was caught in a big storm and he realized that his health was not the best. Also, his father, who was ready to accept the will of God, preferred to see him become a diocesan priest. Anthony realized he was called to be a missionary, rather than a Carthusian recluse. So he withdrew his decision to go to the monastery and returned home. And so in 1829 he entered the local diocesan seminary in the city of Vic and was ordained a priest at the age of 27 on June 13, 1835, on the feast of St. Anthony of Padua, his namesake. Father Anthony was assigned to his hometown parish, where he continued to study theology. However, because missionary work strongly appealed to him, Fr. Anthony, having been released by his bishop, was determined to go to Rome to offer himself to the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Propaganda Fide) so that they could send him anywhere in the world to serve in foreign missions. When Fr. Anthony arrived at Rome in August 1839, he learned that it would be several weeks before he could see the head of the Propaganda Fide. He decided to utilize the time by going on retreat with the Jesuit Fathers for guidance in the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius Loyola. The retreat master was so impressed by Fr. Anthony that he urged him to immediately enter the Society of Jesus (commonly known as the Jesuits) to fulfill his missionary ambitions. He entered the novitiate of the Jesuits. Community life with the Jesuits provided examples of sanctity, humility, obedience, asceticism, and discipline. Fr. Anthony had a broader opportunity to catechize and minister to hospital and prison inmates. He learned a lot and was making great spiritual progress as a Jesuit novice. However, after only a few months, he suddenly developed a crippling leg ailment. This led his superiors to judge this as a sign that Fr. Anthony was not called to be a Jesuit, that God might have other plans for him, and they recommended that he return to Spain. Fr. Anthony obeyed and the leg pain disappeared! Once again, he returned home where he continued to search for Gods will in his life while he served as a diocesan priest in pastoral ministry . He attracted notice by his efforts on behalf of the poor. Increasingly, he was asked to conduct missions in surrounding parishes, with crowds attending them. This caused anticlericals in government to become concerned. His sermons were banned and Fr. Anthony had to go to a remote parish deep in the mountains. By 1843, the power shifted in the Spanish government temporarily, which allowed a to a more lenient attitude toward the Church. The Holy See, therefore, named Fr. Anthony as apostolic missionary of Catalonia, which he assumed with such zeal that he sometimes preached 10-12 sermons a day. As apostolic missionary, he delivered some 10,000 sermons, sleeping no more than two hours a day eating very little. Yet years later, Fr. Anthony explained, “I know God wants me to preach, because I feel as peaceful, rested, and energetic as if I’d done nothing at all. Our Lord has done it all. May He be blessed forever.” He also credited the effectiveness as a missionary to the Blessed Virgin Mary to whom he asked for her intercession for results. Prayers combined with his natural eloquence, simple style, and the charm of his sermons made him popular as a preacher and a confessor. Every day Fr. Anthony entered the Church at 4 AM and remained there until 9:30 PM., first to pray and then to celebrate Mass with a 3-hour sermon to packed crowds. In the evenings, the vast congregation gathered and prayed the Rosary with Fr. Anthony. In addition to preaching, he was in the confessional until he left for the day, fifteen or more hours with people waiting in line for 4-5 hours, who were stirred to repentance through hid sermons. This was Fr. Anthonys daily routine for some seven years. What was needed obviously were more missionaries like himself, yet the government of Spain made it impossible recruit and organize a company of missionary priests as he desired, nor could he increase his own labors any further. The solution which occurred him was to have sermons and instructions printed and given to the people after each mission he preached by which the fruits of the missions would be more lasting and more people of all social classes would be reached. Thus the Catholic press was conceived for the defense and propagation of the Faith and in 1847, Fr. Anthony published his first little book, The Right Road. Immediately it became so popular that within seven years well over 300,000 copies were in circulation. Before his death he would compose a total of 144 works which, to the present times, have seen more than eleven million copies printed. Fr. Anthony went on to found in 1848 the Libreria Religiosa (Religious Bookstore) whose purpose was to publish and distribute religious literature, as well as medals, rosaries, and other religious items. Some years later, in addition to the Bookstore, he also founded the Academy of Saint Michael, a lay ministry to encourage, subsidize, and promote Catholic literature and art. As Fr. Anthony began writing books and pamphlets there was increasing political restlessness in Spain, which endangered his life and curtailed his missionary activities. So, he accepted an offer to preach in the Canary Islands, where he spent 14 months. He was success there too, but he decided to return to Spain to carry out one of his dreams: the organization of an order of missionaries to share in his work. In 1849, he gathered a group of priests who shared his dream and he founded the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, known today as the Claretian Fathers and Brothers. Days later, he received a new assignment: he was named Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba. He later explained that when he was consecrated archbishop, “out of devotion to Mary Most Holy I added the sweet name of Maria, my mother, my patroness, my mistress, my directress, and, after Jesus, my all.” Thus, he had to leave the newly founded community to respond to the call of God in the New World. After two months of travel, he reached the Island of Cuba and began his ministry as Archbishop by dedicating it to Mary. He realized the urgent need for human and Christian formation, specially among the poor, so he founded the Apostolic Training Institute of the Immaculate Conception, the Claretian sisters. Thus, from 1850 to 1857 Archbishop Anthony Mary of Santiago de Cuba remained Cuba, traveling town by town. Records show he confirmed 100,000 people and performed 9,000 sacramental marriages. Bishop Anthony Mary was called back to Spain in 1857 to serve as confessor to the Queen of Spain, Isabella II. Though he loved poverty and the simplest lifestyle and had a dislike for aristocratic life, he accepted in obedience, but requested to be allowed to continue some missionary work. Thus, whenever he had to travel with the Queen, he used the opportunity to preach in different towns throughout Spain. During the eleven years he spent as confessor to the Queen of Spain, he suffered slander and ridicule from the enemies of the Church directed toward him. In 1868 a new revolution dethroned the Queen and she and her with her family went into exile in France. Bishop Anthony Marys life was also in danger, so he accompanied her to France, gave him the opportunity to preach the Gospel in Paris. He later went to Rome where he had a private audience with Pope Pius IX. While he was in Rome, 700 bishops from all over the world gathered in Rome for the First Vatican Council in 1869 and 1870. Bishop Anthony Mary, as was one of the Council Fathers, defended vehemently papal infallibility, which became a dogma of faith for all Catholics. The Italian revolution interrupted the process of the Council, which was never concluded. Bishop Anthony Marys health deteriorated, so he returned to France accompanied by the Superior General of the Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, his congregation. He died in the Cistercian monastery in southern France on October 24, 1870. Let us pray, O God, who for the evangelization of peoples strengthened the Bishop Saint Anthony Mary Claret with admirable charity and long-suffering, grant, through his intercession, that, seeking the things that are yours, we may earnestly devote ourselves to winning our brothers and sisters for Christ. Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. St. Anthony Mary Claret, pray for us. From a work by Saint Anthony Mary Claret, bishop Driven by the fire of the Holy Spirit, the holy apostles traveled throughout the earth. Inflamed with the same fire, apostolic missionaries have reached, are now reaching, and will continue to reach the ends of the earth, from one pole to the other, in order to proclaim the word of God. They are deservedly able to apply to themselves those words of the apostle Paul: The love of Christ drives us on. The love of Christ arouses us, urges us to run, and to fly, lifted on the wings of holy zeal. The zealous man desires and achieve all great things and he labors strenuously so that God may always be better known, loved and served in this world and in the life to come, for this holy love is without end. Because he is concerned also for his neighbor, the man of zeal works to fulfill his desire that all men be content on this earth and happy and blessed in their heavenly homeland, that all may be saved, and that no one may perish for ever, or offend God, or remain even for a moment in sin. Such are the concerns we observe in the holy apostles and in all who are driven by the apostolic spirit. For myself, I say this to you: The man who burns with the fire of divine love is a son of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and wherever he goes, he enkindles that flame; he deserves and works with all this strength to inflame all men with the fire of God’s love. Nothing deters him: he rejoices in poverty; he labors strenuously; he welcomes hardships; he laughs off false accusations; he rejoices in anguish. He thinks only of how he might follow Jesus Christ and imitate him by his prayers, his labors, his sufferings, and by caring always and only for the glory of God and the salvation of souls
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 15:28:39 +0000
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