Walking with the Saints Podcast | Feast of St. Anthony Mary Claret, Patron Saint of all Weavers | October 24
Much can be said about St. Anthony Mary Claret, our saint for today, the founder of the Claretians, but due to our limited space we shall concentrate only on the most essentials. Anthony Mary Claret was born in Sallent, Barcelona, Spain on December 23, 1807. As a child, he was educated in his village. His father was a weaver so at eighteen, Anthony specialized as a loom programmer, at the same time, he studied
Latin, French and engraving. He wished to become a Carthusian monk but finally entered the diocesan seminary at Vic in 1829, was ordained on June 13, 1835 and continued to study theology. Desiring to be a missionary, he went to Rome and entered the Jesuit novitiate but due to ill health, he did not persevere and instead returned to Spain for his pastoral ministry. His Bishop then sent him as an Apostolic Missionary in Catalonia. After preaching in the pulpit, he would spend hours hearing confession. In 1848, he was sent to Canary Islands where he gave retreats for 15 months. He drew many people to listen to him. He
would often preach from an improvised pulpit before the church to accommodate the people. When he returned to Spain in 1849, he established the Congregation of the Missionary Sons of the
Immaculate Heart of Mary (The Claretians) on July 16, 1849. He was
afterwards appointed as archbishop of Santiago, Cuba. As archbishop, he established the Seminary, strengthened clerical discipline, validated 9,000 marriages, erected hospitals, schools, visited prisoners and the sick, defended the poor and the marginalized, denounced racism and visited the entire diocese three times. On August 25, 1855, he founded the Religious of Mary Immaculate, the first women religious institute
in Cuba. His sermons and many apostolic works met oppositions wherever he worked. Once a man stabbed him on the cheek, but he forgave him and obtained for him a commutation from death sentence to life imprisonment. In 1857, Archbishop Claret was requested by Queen Isabella II to be her Confessor. He resigned from his work in Cuba and went to Spain. When a revolution sent the Queen and her
family to exile, he accompanied them to France. Consequently, he was able to preach in Paris. After a short stay in Rome, he went to Madrid when the Queen had returned from exile and he brought with him the faculty to absolve her from the censures she incurred.
Archbishop Claret wrote 144 titles of books and he distributed many. He also possessed extraordinary gifts. Witnesses say they saw him transfigured while preaching or while praying. He would also levitate. He stopped earthquakes in Cuba while placing his palms on the earth as he prayed. He also stopped terrible storms by blessing the storm clouds. On September 3, 1895, he claimed that Jesus told him about the
three evils that would descend upon humanity: wars, temptations of pleasure, lust and money, false reasoning against God’s will. Finally, Jesus said that a great chastisement would come and it is communism, not yet widespread at that time. But He told him that the remedy would be devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and praying the Holy Rosary.
In 1869, Anthony Mary Claret retired and stayed at the Cistercian abbey at Narbonne, France, where he died shortly after on October 24, 1870 at the age of 62. He was beatified on February 24, 1934 by Pope Pius XI and was canonized 16 years later, on May 7, 1950 by Pope Pius XII. The Claretians, spiritual sons of St. Anthony Mary Claret, are present in Europe, South America, Africa and Asia. His feast day is October 24.
Virtue: piety, humility, adaptability, honesty, obedience, fortitude, integrity, charity and forgiveness
