Father Claret gives a stranger's silver to destitute Spaniards on deck

CIVITAVECCHIA, Papal States, October 1839 AD — Father Anthony Mary Claret, a Catalan priest of thirty-one, landed at Civitavecchia this month after five days on the open deck of the steamer Tancrède from Marseille. He lived on a loaf of bread and a piece of cheese that a storm soaked through on the first night. Passengers pressed money on him, and he kept none of it. Every coin went to the destitute Spaniards on board.

In Scripture and in prayer alike, Father Claret had felt the Lord calling him out to preach. This summer he gave up his post as acting parish priest of Sallent, his home town. He was going to Rome to put his life in the hands of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide (for the Propagation of the Faith), the Roman body that sends priests to the missions, so that it could send him anywhere in the world.

The authorities in Barcelona would not give him a passport to sail from there, so he left on foot and alone. He had no money for the road, and his bundle held a breviary, a Bible and a change of shirt. A young Catalan who was preparing for ordination had agreed to travel with him and backed out at the last moment. Near the pass at Font del Picasó, in the Pyrenees, an armed band stopped Father Claret and then let him go.

At Marseille he waited five days for a ship, and went aboard at one in the afternoon. He saw the journey as a chance to work and suffer for Jesus Christ, not as a pleasure trip. So he paid for a place at the bow, the poorest and cheapest part of the ship. Deck passengers were given no food, and before boarding he had bought a round loaf of about a pound and a piece of cheese.

On deck he heard men speaking Castilian Spanish, and he went over to ask whether they were Spaniards. They were Benedictine monks who had fled Navarre, in northern Spain, and were going to Rome. They told him what they had suffered and that they now had almost nothing. They also told him that a Catalan on the ship had been robbed crossing the frontier. It was the young man who had broken his word to Father Claret. A few days after Father Claret had been let go at the pass, the same men had stopped the young Catalan at the same spot and taken all his money. They made him strip, shirt and all, to search him. Father Claret found him in great distress and comforted him as best he could.

Later, after saying the Rosary alone, Father Claret looked for somewhere to rest. He sat down on a coil of rope and leaned his head against a cannon set in a gunport. He was meditating on the Gospel story of Jesus asleep in the boat with His disciples. Then a storm broke over the steamer, and seawater began to pour across the deck.

Father Claret stayed where he was on the coil of rope and pulled his cloak over his head. In his lap, pressed against his body, he held his bundle, his food and his hat. At the sound of each wave he bent forward and turned his back to it, so the water ran down his back and not onto the breviary and Bible on his knees. The storm went on until dawn. The water soaked through his cloak and into the bread and cheese. They were very salty, but he was hungry and they tasted good to him.

The next morning, when he had said the morning prayers of his breviary, an English gentleman came over to him. The Englishman said he was a Catholic who loved Catholic priests, and after a while he went off to his cabin. He was travelling in great style, with his own carriage, servants, birds and dogs on board. A little later Father Claret saw him coming back with a plate of silver coins. Father Claret wrote of that moment: “When I saw him, I thought, ‘What are you going to do? Will you accept the money or not?’ I said to myself, ‘You don’t need it, but those poor Spaniards do; so take it and give it to them.’”

Father Claret took the coins, thanked the Englishman and shared them out among the poor Spaniards he had met on deck, the Navarrese monks and the young Catalan. They went straight to the ship’s galley and bought food. Other passengers also gave him money, and he passed on every coin. He did not eat a mouthful of what the Spaniards bought. He lived on his bread soaked in seawater.

The Englishman watched the Spaniards eat while Father Claret ate nothing, and he said he was deeply moved by it. He wrote his name and the palace where he would be staying in Rome on a slip of paper. He gave it to Father Claret and told him to come and see him for anything he needed.

From Civitavecchia, Father Claret, the monks and the young Catalan went on to Rome and arrived at about ten in the morning. His one letter of introduction was to a Catalan bishop who had already left the city. Father Claret was in the city with no money, no recommendations and no one he knew.