Dying St. Peter Claver sends his old teacher's handwritten book to novices

SEVILLE, Spain, April 1610 AD — Saint Peter Claver, a young Jesuit not yet ordained, sailed from Seville for the Indies in April 1610 AD. In his luggage was a little book written out by hand by the old porter of the Jesuit college at Majorca, Saint Alonso Rodríguez. The lay brother had urged him to go, and the book was nearly taken from him at the college door.

In 1605 AD St. Peter Claver was one of the young Jesuit students sent to a newly founded college at Majorca. St. Alonso had joined the Jesuits at forty and now kept the college door. On landing, St. Peter Claver went straight to find him, meaning to throw himself at the old man’s feet. St. Alonso tried to kneel to him in turn. Neither would let the other kneel first, and the contest ended in an embrace.

St. Peter Claver asked the porter to teach him: “Ah, my dear Alphonso, what must I do to love Jesus Christ my God and Saviour with my whole heart? Do you teach me, you who are instructed in His own school: I feel that He inspires the desire to belong to Him alone, but I know not how to begin.” With the superior’s permission the two set aside an hour every day to talk about God, and St. Peter Claver wrote down everything St. Alonso said.

Shortly before St. Peter Claver was due to leave the island, St. Alonso told him: “If the glory of God’s house concerns you, go to the Indies and save millions of these perishing souls.” St. Peter Claver wrote to the head of his province asking to be sent.

St. Peter Claver left Majorca in November 1608 AD. At their parting St. Alonso promised never to forget St. Peter Claver in his penances and prayers. St. Alonso gave his student some devotional papers he had written out by hand. Among them was a small book that went through the virtues of the religious life one by one.

The superiors at Majorca had forbidden any of St. Alonso’s writings to leave the college, to spare the old man the constant requests for them. The brother then keeping the college door told St. Peter Claver about it and was about to take the papers from him. St. Peter Claver went back to St. Alonso. St. Alonso went straight to the superior and asked permission to give some of his writings to his student, because the young Jesuit would soon be going to the Indies, where such books were hard to find. The superior agreed, and St. Peter Claver was allowed to take the little book.

St. Peter Claver began theology at Barcelona. The head of his province, Father Joseph de Villegas, held him back there for almost two years while St. Peter Claver kept asking to go. In 1609 AD the Province of Aragon chose St. Peter Claver for the new Jesuit mission in New Granada, and Father Villegas gave way. Father Villegas wrote in the letter of permission: “No ay q resistir mas a la voluntad de N. S.” (There is no more resisting the will of Our Lord). In April 1610 AD St. Peter Claver and his companions sailed from Seville, and months later they landed at Cartagena de Indias, the chief slave market of the New World.

Before St. Peter Claver left for the Indies, St. Alonso had also given him a short Office of the Immaculate Conception, a set of prayers to Our Lady written out in his own hand. St. Peter Claver prayed it three times a week for the rest of his life. To the end of his life he called St. Alonso his holy master.

After his studies inland, St. Peter Claver was sent back to Cartagena in November 1615 AD and spent the rest of his life among the enslaved Africans brought into that port. The little book went everywhere with him, and he read in it constantly. Once, when he was ill, he held it pressed to his chest as he received Viaticum, the communion given to the dying.

In 1651 AD, in his last illness at Cartagena, St. Peter Claver gave away St. Alonso’s writings, with his superiors’ permission. He sent the little book to the Jesuit novitiate at Tunja, the house where young Jesuits were trained and where he had once served as porter. In the letter that went with it, dated October 28, St. Peter Claver wrote: “I send it to the noviciate, that the novices may profit by it, and that the novice-father may keep it carefully, as a treasure of which I myself have not known how to make good use. I entreat of those who read it to pray to God for a sinner, who having such a precious mine at his disposal, instead of drawing from it the pure gold of sanctity, has collected nothing but its rust.”