Saint Anthony Mary Claret

St. Anthony Mary was born at Sallent, an industrial town in Catalonia, on December 23, 1807 AD, the fifth of eleven children. His father, Juan Claret, was a cotton weaver who owned a small factory. As a boy he began studying Latin, but the lessons ended when his teacher died.

At twelve his father put him to work at the looms, although the boy had already shown signs that he wanted to be a priest. He wove a piece and a half of cloth a week, when most weavers managed one. In 1825 AD he went to Barcelona with his brother Juan to learn more of the trade, and won prizes in its drawing classes.

In Barcelona he went back to Latin in his free hours with a blind teacher, Francisco Artigas, because he still felt drawn to the priesthood. In 1826 AD a wave carried him far out while he was bathing, and after he called on Our Lady a companion pulled him from the water. Afterwards he resolved to give himself entirely to God, and his father, though surprised, did not stand in his way.

On September 29, 1829 AD, after Mass with his family, he left Sallent for the diocesan seminary at Vic. The Bishop of Solsona ordained him a priest on June 13, 1835 AD, the feast of his patron, St. Anthony of Padua. On his first day hearing confessions, August 2, 1835 AD, he heard them for six hours without a break.

In 1839 AD Father Claret gave up his parish to offer himself to the Church's office in Rome that sent priests to the foreign missions. He set out alone and on foot, with no money, carrying only a breviary, a Bible, a shirt, a pair of stockings, a handkerchief, a razor and a comb. From Marseille he paid for the cheapest place on deck and lived on bread and cheese for the five days to Civitavecchia.

In Rome he entered the Jesuit novitiate on November 2, 1839 AD. In February 1840 AD, after the novices began the Spiritual Exercises, a pain in one leg grew so severe that the doctors feared he would be crippled for life. The head of the Jesuits told him it was God's will that he go back to Spain, and he left Rome in mid-March 1840 AD.

St. Anthony Mary Claret began his missions in the parish of Viladrau on August 15, 1840 AD, with a novena for the Assumption. Spain was at civil war, and he took great care never to say a word about politics. At Roda in December 1843 AD the church was packed, and his voice carried clearly to the people standing outside.

In 1848 AD he founded the Religious Library at Barcelona to print cheap Catholic books, and its first title was his own explained catechism. That year he went to the Canary Islands with their new bishop, Buenaventura Codina, and preached there for fifteen months. He came home in May 1849 AD with nothing but two rips in his cloak.

On July 16, 1849 AD, in the seminary of Vic, St. Anthony Mary Claret and five young priests began a retreat together. That day they founded the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (the Claretians). Less than three weeks later Queen Isabella II named him Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, and he accepted two months after that.

Archbishop Claret was consecrated at Vic on October 6, 1850 AD, and reached Cuba on February 16, 1851 AD. He found parish priests living in poverty and ruined churches; he wrote to the Queen about the priests in May 1851 AD and reported on the churches and clergy to the island's government in December 1851 AD. At El Cobre on June 21, 1851 AD, he cut the fees and paperwork for weddings, so that couples living together without marriage could afford to marry.

On February 1, 1856 AD, on a pastoral visit to the city of Holguín, Archbishop Claret preached in the evening. At about half past eight that night, as he left the church, a man named Antonio Pérez came up as if to kiss his ring and struck at him with a razor. The blade opened his left cheek to the bone from the ear to the point of the chin and wounded his right arm.

The attacker was seized at once, and the furious crowd almost turned on him before he could be handed over to the courts. When a fistula formed in the wound, an operation was set, but the wound healed in the night before it, after he called on Our Lady. He was back in Santiago de Cuba in time to lead the Holy Week services in person.

On March 18, 1857 AD, coming home to his palace in Santiago de Cuba after a sermon, Archbishop Claret found an order to go to Madrid at once. In Madrid Queen Isabella II told him she wanted him to direct her soul, and on June 5 a Royal Order named him her confessor. He was mocked in many slanderous caricatures, and on March 21, 1865 AD the man who made them came to him for confession.

In July 1865 AD the Queen agreed to recognise the new Kingdom of Italy, which had taken most of the Pope's lands. Three days later he was praying in the church at La Granja when, he wrote, Jesus told him to leave; he left the court. In Rome that autumn Pope Pius IX told him to go back to Spain, and he returned to the court.

A revolution that began with the fleet off Cádiz in September 1868 AD dethroned Queen Isabella II. St. Anthony Mary Claret crossed into France with her and the royal family. On March 30, 1869 AD, he laid down his post as her confessor and left Paris for Rome and the First Vatican Council.

In August 1870 AD friends warned him to leave as soon as he could, and on August 6 he set out for the Cistercian abbey of Fontfroide, near Narbonne. He died there at a quarter to nine on the morning of October 24, 1870 AD, the day on which the Church keeps his feast. The monks wanted to bury him inside the abbey church, but the French authorities refused, and he was laid in the common grave.