Portal:Catholicism/Patron Archive/October 24 2007
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Saint Antonio Maria Claret i Clarà (Anthony Mary Claret (and Clara)) was a 19th-century Catalan Roman Catholic archbishop, missionary and confessor of the Spanish queen-regnant Isabella II.
Claret was born at Sallent, near Barcelona (Catalonia) on 23 December 1807, the son of a small woollen manufacturer. He received an elementary education in his native village, and at the age of twelve became a weaver. A little later he went to Barcelona to specialize in his trade, and remained there until he was twenty. Meanwhile he devoted his spare time to study and became proficient in Latin, French and engraving.
Recognizing a call to religious life, he left Barcelona. He now wished to become a Carthusian but finally entered the seminary at Vic in 1829, and was ordained on 13 June, 1835. He received a benefice in his native parish, where he continued to study theology till 1839; but as missionary work appealed strongly to him, he proceeded to Rome. There he entered the Jesuit novitiate, but finding himself unsuited for that manner of life, he returned shortly to Spain and exercised his pastoral ministry in Viladrau and Girona, attracting notice by his efforts on behalf of the poor.
Recalled by his superiors to Vic, he was engaged in missionary work throughout his native Catalonia. In 1848 he was sent to the Canary Islands where he gave retreats for fifteen months. Returning to Vic he established the Congregation of the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (16 July, 1849).
Pius IX at the request of the Spanish crown (queen-regnant Isabella II of Spain) appointed him Archbishop of Santiago, Cuba in 1849. His zealous works stirred up much opposition in the anti-clerical mood of the period, as had happened previously in Spain. No less than fifteen attempts were made on his life, and at Holguin his cheek was laid open from ear to chin by a would-be assassin's knife.
In February, 1857, he was recalled to Spain by Queen Isabella II, who made him her confessor. He obtained permission to resign his see and was appointed to the titular see of Trajanopolis. His influence was now directed solely to help the poor and to propagate learning; he lived frugally and took up his residence in an Italian hospice. For nine years he was rector of the Escorial monastic school where he established an excellent scientific laboratory, a museum of natural history, a library, college and schools of music and languages. His further plans were frustrated by the Revolution of 1868. When Isabella recognized the new, secular government of a united Italy, he left the Court and hastened to take his place by the side of the Pope; at the latter's command, however, he returned to Madrid with faculties for absolving the queen from the censures she had incurred for this. In 1869 he went to Rome to prepare for the First Vatican Council. Owing to failing health he withdrew to Prades in France, where he was still harassed by his Spanish enemies; shortly afterwards he retired to the Cistercian abbey at Fontfroide, Narbonne, southern France, where he expired on 24 October 1870.
Attributes:
Patronage: Textile Merchants, Weavers, Savings (taught the poor the importance of savings), Catholic press, Claretians Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Prayer:
