The Reminiscences of St. Anthony Mary Claret Taken From CATHOLIC TREASURES, Issue No. 33, 1978 THE PROPHECIES OF CUBA It was August 20, 1852. Archbishop Claret was preaching a Mission in Bayamo, a town more than thirty leagues from the capital. One night the people noticed something extraordinary in the holy missionary. This strangeness was reflected in the pallor of his face and in the tremor of his voice. He began his sermon as was his custom, with full force, but at the most ardent and stirring point of his eloquence, he suddenly became silent; then directing himself to his audience, who looked at him in consternation, he pronounced these prophetic words: "Let us pray to God for our brethren, residents of Santiago de Cuba, because they are in great tribulation. Tomorrow we shall go to console them." "But what happened in Santiago?" An eyewitness writes in detail. He says: "A subterranean noise of thunder was heard, and from that moment everything moved; buildings vibrated; furniture in the rooms moved; window panes and doors creaked; houses and churches tottered and walls and roofs fell to pieces; the inhabitants were terror stricken, and not feeling secure in their homes, they went out into the patios, streets, and plazas. A glacial terror froze the blood in their veins. They stood still and remained silent, looking at each other without being able to explain what was happening. With a terrified voice they cried: "Mercy! Mercy! The Archbishop arrived. On seeing thousands of his children dispersed through the fields, the streets covered with debris, houses in ruins, the episcopal palace torn down, the churches crumbled, the Cathedral rent and the altars broken, moved to profound pity by the tragic sight of the catastrophe, he wept as Jesus wept over the ruins of Jerusalem. The domestics and the missionaries wished to console the archbishop; they wished to cheer him by telling him that the punishment of the earthquake would not be repeated. But he replied: 'They will return. It is useless to construct the cathedral and the houses. The earthquake will return soon. God wishes it. They are the great missionaries that God sends so that obstinate hearts, who do not wish to listen to words of love, may be converted.' " The churches were still filled with debris. The stricken families had raised tents on the shores of the sea. They had also improvised a chapel under an immense covering. The pulpit was a platform and from it the holy archbishop preached a Mission. Thousands of persons listened to him. His voice was sweet and sincere, threatening and terrifying, announcing simple Gospel truths and striking prophecy. One day he made the following comparison: "God does with many of us as a mother does to a lazy sleeping child, she shakes the cot or bed so as to awaken him and cause him to arise. If that does not suffice, she whips him. "God does the same with many of his children, lethargic sinners. He shakes their beds, that is, their houses, by means of earthquakes, saving their bodies and their lives. If that does not awaken them and they do not arise, He will give them blows, sending them the cholera and the pest. God has made that known to me." These last words, pronounced with prophetic accent, frightened and moved the public, so that, amid sobs, they begged mercy and pardon of God. "Only one month had passed," said an eyewitness, "since the archbishop had spoken inspired by Heaven, of the punishment of the cholera which threatened the city, when the terrible infirmity already raised its empire of terror and death. "Santiago was an immense hospital, where only groans of pain and anguish were heard. But in a few days it looked like a vast cemetery, whose tragic silence was sadly interrupted by the echo of funeral cars carrying heaps of corpses, or by the priest's rapid footsteps, hastening to a death-bed." Father Claret loved all his children who were obedient to the Church and faithful to the law of God. On seeing among the wayward and fantastic many representatives of the distant homeland, his Spanish heart was saddened. He uttered, principally against his racial brethren, a third prophecy, which produced consternation in his audience. He was preaching at the Marina. Suddenly he changed the subject of his sermon. His voice assumed a solemn tone and he spoke the following words: "I have come to announce three great chastisements, which God has reserved to move many obstinate hearts to repentance. The first, the earthquake, has already been fulfilled. The second will soon come to pass; it will be the cholera. And the third . . . " Here he paused and exclaimed: "Do penance for your sins and for those of the people, so that God may stay the arm ready to strike." He publicly made the prophecy of the three chastisements also in the towns of Vicario and of Mazanilla. When Father Currius asked him later what the third chastisement would be the servant of God replied: "The punishment is a great war in which the Europeans, especially the Spaniards, will be pursued to death like hares in the forest." Thus it happened. On September 11, 1868, in that same place---- Sara-----more than three thousand peasants, on horseback, with guns and chopping knives, gathered by Don Carlos Manuel Cespedes, sent forth the cry of independence against Spain, and surprising the unarmed troops of the town, gave knife-thrusts to the Europeans. Two of the Spaniards, before being assassinated exclaimed: "This is a punishment of God! We have heard Father Claret's prophecy of this insurrection. My God, have mercy!" Some time passed. Soon the lips of Father Claret were to open again to send forth over Cuba a fourth prophecy. His face was pale. "What can be the matter with the archbishop? For some nine days he has been going about sad and preoccupied." So said the intimate associates of Father Claret, but no one dared to inquire about the cause, nor dared to ask the holy prelate himself. On a certain day, one of them-----the rector of the Seminary, said to him: "Your Excellency, do you wish us to call a doctor? We notice that Your Excellency must be suffering much." "No, do not be worried," the archbishop responded. "A physician cannot relieve me of my sufferings: they are moral sufferings." After a brief silence he exclaimed: "Let us beg God to avoid a terrible punishment which threatens this archbishopric. If it does not destroy the entire fruit of our apostolic works, it will carry away a great part of it." He then changed the course of the conversation, touching upon indifferent things. But soon, as though overtaken by a sudden vision, he repeated the same words: "Let us pray God that this may not happen!" Father Claret did not clarify the mystery of his veiled prediction, but all who heard it later remembered it when the schism of Llorent, an ambitious clergyman, who declared he had obtained from the liberal Minister of the Interior, Ruiz Zorrilla, the nomination of Archbishop of Santiago. Although he was rejected by Pope Pius IX and excommunicated for being immoral and rebellious, he, nevertheless, succeeded in drawing into the schism a part of the Cathedral Chapter and separating from the Church many of the faithful whom the apostolic word of Father Claret had converted. This was the cause of the archbishop's sadness. He had contemplated the spectacle of the ruins that the earthquake had caused in his beloved city. He had witnessed the funeral procession of thousands of corpses that the cholera had carried to the cemeteries. He had seen, on a horizon of blood and of crime, the war of the insurgents, that would wave the flag of independence over the fields of death, where lay, in heaps, the palpitating victims. Among the shadows of the future, in a not far-distant date, he saw all the horror of a spiritual mortality which the schism was to cause in that archbishopric, which, with so much love and sacrifice, he had watered with the sweat of his brow, with tears in his eyes and with the blood of his wounds. THE CALL OF THE QUEEN A distant scene: Madrid, the metropolis of the kingdom; and in Madrid, the Royal Palace, a poem in stone that sings of the power of the nation; and in the Royal Palace a Queen, sad and disheartened, hiding, in the midst of the splendors of the court, the grief of spiritual desolation. Suddenly the Queen recalled a memory, the memory of a missionary, of an archbishop, of a Saint, of whose prodigies she had heard many times, and whom she had once seen in the Palace while on an official visit of gratitude and leave-taking. She then said resolutely and joyfully: "He shall be the successor to Cardinal Bonel, in directing my conscience. He shall be my confessor!" Father Claret was preaching a mission. A communication was brought to him from the Captain General. The message read: "Her Majesty, the Queen, desires that Your Excellency come to Madrid immediately. I believe she wishes to make you Archbishop of Toledo. Tomorrow she will send the order and will place a boat at your disposal." Mysterious destiny! Which of the ideals was realized by his return to the peninsula? History testifies that all three were realized. First of all, the glory of martyrdom, of a slow and profound martyrdom, because he was the victim of the persecution of the sects, of impious calumnies, and of the ire of the revolution, dying in exile because he loved justice and hated iniquity. He renounces his archbishopric, moreover, because as soon as he accepted the nomination of confessor to the Queen, he asked His Holiness, Pope Pius IX, to loosen the bonds that tied him to his archbishopric, a desire which His Holiness satisfied by naming him titular Archbishop of Trajanopolis on June 13, 1860, after continuing, during three years, while in Madrid, Apostolic Administrator of the Metropolitan See of Santiago de Cuba. Finally his third ideal-----the exercise of the Missions, was realized. At the close of 1857, Father Claret was the archbishop-missionary of Spain, of all Spain, because his apostolic word resounded with the echoes of eternity, in the principal pulpits of the cathedrals, churches and chapels of the entire peninsula. Thus appears the historic personality of Saint Anthony Claret in bold relief and in all its details. It was February 22, 1857, a day of sadness and loneliness for all of the island! An immense crowd filled the port of Santiago. Tears and sobs, vivas and acclamations were the language of overflowing emotion. They were rendering just homage. All could repeat here the word of Jesus Christ: "If these were silent, the very stones would speak." How much Cuba owed to the sacrifices of the archbishop-missionary! The boat weighed anchor. The holy archbishop was deeply moved on casting a last look on his beloved island. On looking into the future, he saw with prophetic light, the ravages of war, which was to inundate the fields with blood, and cover the city with ruins. He remembered the prediction of Jesus Christ: "Days will come over thee! Then thy enemies will draw near, will oppress thee! They will cast thee upon the earth and they will overthrow thy children. There shall not be left a stone upon a stone, and all because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation." CHRISTMAS EVE God took account of the sweat of the brow of His apostle; while the Angels gathered those drops in order to set them, like diamonds, in the crown of glory, He wished to reward the sacrifices of His servant even in life. He did so as only God can do. It was in Madrid, in the year 1864, in the month of December, on Christmas Night, during the thanksgiving after the Midnight Mass, in the Convent of the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. At his side, in the sanctuary, was the chaplain, Don Carmelo Sala, and in the chapel, the community of the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, at their head the foundress and the spiritual daughter of Father Claret, who had been the Viscountess of Jorbalan in the world, and was now Mother Mary of the Blessed Sacrament (in religion), and who is known as St. Michaela Desmaisieres in the universal Church, since March 4, 1934. Christmas Eve! Never was the night so holy as at that time for the servant of God. Every year he celebrated the three Masses on Christmas in the chapel of the "Adoratrices," and spent six hours hearing Confessions, preaching and praying. After his first Mass, while he was making his thanksgiving in the sanctuary, a silence of adoration reigned in the chapel. A mellow ray, the ray of the moon, which seemed to rock itself in the flight of the clouds, fell, at intervals, through the stained glass windows. The wind whistled. The last echoes of dissipation were dying out on the streets. Soon a sigh, deeper than usual, burst from the breast of Blessed Anthony. This sigh was deeper, more ardent and more prolonged than usual. His face was burning; his bright eyes fixed and ecstatic. He smiled and wept at the same time. Words of amorous delight came in fragments from his lips. Kneeling on the bishop's prie-dieu, his extended arms looked like lilies resting upon a cushion. Folding his arms gently he seemed to press something tender and soft to his heart. Celestial moments! The scene passed. Don Carmelo Sala, chaplain of Blessed Anthony and, moreover, a friend of his and his confessor, afterward addressed him: "Your Excellency; Holy Christmas!" "Ah, yes. Holy Christmas, Holy Christmas," exclaimed Anthony. "Your Excellency: Had you some gift from God? Some Christmas gift?" He was silent, and his confessor, filled with veneration was silent too. A little later, Father Claret, in intimate confidence, said these solemn words to his friend, words which history has gathered and art has glorified: "The holy Virgin placed the Child Jesus in my arms tonight." Some privileged soul among the Religious of Perpetual Adoration must have seen the apparition of the Blessed Virgin placing the Child Jesus in the arms of Father Claret, for soon the community knew of the favor from Heaven. A letter preserved by Sister Angelica, a religious of Perpetual Adoration, is proof of this fact. "That Christmas night," it says, "the five hours we remained in the chapel listening to and seeing Father Claret, seemed but brief moments to us. No one tired. We felt as though we were in a region of happiness. "The Sisters said that during his thanksgiving Father was in ecstasy and had received the Child Jesus in his arms. The Blessed Virgin had given the Child to him." All his biographers refer lovingly to this act. Thousands of pictures showing the apparition have been circulated throughout the world. The large stained glass windows in our churches recall the vision. It is one of the Claretian episodes that has been received with the greatest piety and devotion by the faithful. DOCUMENTS OF MODESTY His presence everywhere awakened sympathy and attraction. The people considered themselves fortunate to be able to kiss his ring or the mantelleta of his episcopal robes. Wherever he preached there was sure to be a crowd. During the period in which the sermons were to be given, it was necessary to defend him, in some way, from the crowding and from the curiosity of the people who surrounded him, by means of a quadrilateral formed of four boards, and to carry him through the middle of the streets and plazas until he reached the church or entered his house. Such was the popular enthusiasms awakened by his apostolic word. His modesty, as well in private as in large public gathering, was exemplary. Many persons, on beholding him, awaited his exit at the doors of the church, or stopped him on the sidewalks of the street, or looked upon him with edification from the balconies and windows. "I have observed," said Father Anthony, "that one forms a poor impression of the priest who does not keep his eyes cast down. Jesus Christ always did so. The Evangelists count the times that He raised His eyes as an extraordinary and unaccustomed action." "During the six years and two months that I remained in Cuba, I confirmed more than three hundred thousand persons, mostly women, the greater part of whom were young. But if after each Confirmation I would have been asked about the type, figure or color of the one confirmed, I would not have known, because when anointing the forehead, I raised and lowered my eyes rapidly." ECHOES FROM THE PULPIT What the orators of the day most admired in Father Claret was his consistency in preaching his sermons. One day, Don Hermenegildo Coll de Valdemia preached a brilliant and animated sermon. Father Claret assisted at the function. Don Hermenegildo received congratulations for his discourse. Father Claret, however, retired silently. On the following day, early in the morning, the celebrated orator visited Father Claret; greatly disturbed he said to him: "Your Excellency, pardon me for troubling you with this inopportune visit. I need to unburden my heart to Your Excellency. I have not been able to sleep all night. Tell me, archbishop, did my sermon not please you yesterday? Your silence has been a warning and a reproof for me!" Then Father Claret consoled and encouraged him, but at the same time gave him this salutary advice: "Tell me, Don Hermenegildo, have you ever preached on the salvation of the soul or on the terrible misfortune of the damned?" "No, Your Excellency, I have not yet preached on those subjects." "Have you preached on death, on judgment, on Hell, on the necessity of conversion, on avoiding sin and doing penance?"   "I have not preached directly on these subjects either." "Well then, my friend, I am going to speak to you with all sincerity, since you have asked me to do so. It did not please me, nor can I approve the procedure of those who in their sermons omit these great truths of Christianity and only touch upon such subjects as serve but little to convert souls. I do not think that such sermons are either agreeable to or shall be approved by Our Lord, Jesus Christ." Don Hermenegildo listened and was silent. A few days later the people of Madrid saw a radical change in the oratory of that famous preacher. Formerly, they applauded his discourses, but now they wept at the unction of his sermons. THE LIVING CIBORIUM Marvels of God! During nine years and two months, our Sacramental Lord wandered, really and truly, through Spain, France, and Italy, in the triumphal chariot of a saintly body and in the golden luna of a heart. The people felt the "passing of God," but were unable to discover the Eucharistic mystery. A double key held it concealed; the key of the secret was that of humility. But the day of revelation came.  Biographers published it for the glory of God. The testimonies of the informative processes gave it official status. The Pontifical approbation of the heroicity of the virtues, of the gifts and of the Divine favors, placed upon it the seal of confirmation, and the piety of the faithful accepted, with veneration and joy, the historic reality of this extraordinary grace. Its synthesis, in all sobriety of thought and word is this: "Blessed Anthony Maria Claret preserved in his bosom uncorruptedly, from one Communion to the other, the Sacramental Species, from August 26th, 1861 until the date of his death, which occurred on October 24th, 1870." A most singular favor which has scarcely ever occurred in the lives of the Saints. Sublime privilege of the Most Holy Virgin, who thus lent her bosom to be the first tabernacle of the world to preserve in it the Incarnation of the God-man; thus He gave His Heart for the first tabernacle of the Church wherein the Eucharistic God would always be preserved. On May 15, 1862, he wrote in his spiritual notes reserved for his director. "On August 26, 1861, finding myself at prayer in the church of the Holy Rosary, at La Granja, at seven o'clock in the evening, the Lord granted me the great grace of conserving the Sacramental Species, and to have, day and night, the Blessed Sacrament within my heart . . . "Therefore, I must always be interiorly recollected and devout. Besides, I must pray and brave all the evils of Spain, as the Lord has told me. Effectually, I remember that without merit, talent, or without any interest from persons, He has raised me from the lowest depths to the highest place, at the side of the kings of earth . . . And now, He has placed me at the side of the King of Heaven! Glorificate et portate Deum in corpore vestro!" Father Claret was very humble, the favor he received was extraordinary. Fearing to be the victim of illusion he attempted, the following year, to efface from his records what he related of this grace, but the Lord and the Blessed Virgin forbade him to do so. Who can calculate the effects of sanctity which this conservation of the Sacramental Species produced in the soul of Blessed Anthony? In truth, what does theology say of this grace? It says, that, if the Holy Eucharist, by virtue of its Real Presence in a man, augments sancifying grace during the time in which the said Species remain incorrupt, as grave theologians assert, among them, Cajetan, Suarez, Lugo and St. Alphonsus, how great must have been this treasure of Divine grace in the heart of Blessed Anthony, when for the space of so many years he had Jesus, our Sacramental Lord, within himself. And what does Asceticism say of this grace? It says, that, if in the words of St. Theresa, one Communion suffices to make a Saint, how very holy Blessed Anthony must have been, when he was receiving Holy Communion every instant, so to say, during the nine years and two months that he preserved the Sacramental Species incorrupt in his breast. And, finally, what does Mysticism say of this grace? It says that it is one of the most extraordinary supernatural favors known at the present time, to have been granted to any Saint, although something similar is told of Venerable Inez de Beniganim, of Sister Gertrude of the Congregation of St. Charles, and of St. Rose of Lima; it is the highest of graces because being similar to the state of contemplation and infused love, accompanied by the experimental, intimate, and constant presence of God in the spirit, it could well be called, in the classification of mystic stages, "spiritual nuptials," celebrated between God and the soul by means of the Eucharist. This life of union chained his thought to God, and nothing could disturb him in the intimacy of his colloquies. As he himself wrote to his spiritual director, "In the streets and the plaza, in the midst of an agitated throng of people, I am as recollected as if I were at prayer." Happy betrothal, which transfused into the heart of Blessed Claret a powerful attraction toward the Eucharist, and created in his soul, as a sublime necessity, the habit of passing long hours in contemplation before the Prisoner of the altar! He once wrote in his "account of conscience" as follows: "Before the Blessed Sacrament I feel an inexplicably lively faith. I almost become sensible of the wounds of Jesus and long to kiss them, and finally I feel myself embraced by Him. When the hour for leaving the Divine Presence comes, I must make every effort to resist the inclination of remaining there longer." This furnace of love had as outlets some ardent phrases, some burning exclamations, some flames of ejaculations, which issued like living fire from his heart and mouth. Because these are burning darts of the Saint's pen and the sudden radiations of the Eucharist in his heart, I wish to place them here in the integrity of his text which he placed in the hands of his spiritual director. "After Mass," he says, "I am, for the space of half an hour, totally annihilated. I do not desire anything except the holy will of God. I then live through the life of Jesus. He, in the possession of me, possesses nothing. I possess everything in Him. "I say to Him: 'Oh, Lord, Thou art my hope, my refuge! Thou art my glory and my end! Oh, my love! Oh, my beatitude! Oh, my joy! Oh, my reformer! Oh, my master! Oh, my father! Oh, spouse of my life and soul!' "I neither seek, O Lord, nor wish to know anything except Thy holy will in order to fulfill it. I do not wish ought else but Thee; in Thee and only through Thee and for Thee do I desire other things. Thou art sufficient for me. I love Thee, my strength, my refuge, my consolation. "Yes, Thou art my father, my Brother, my Spouse, my Friend, and my All. Make me love Thee as Thou lovest me, as Thou wishest that I love Thee. "Oh, my father, consume my poor heart. Consume it as I do Thee for my nourishment, so that I am wholly converted into Thee. "Through the words of consecration the substance of bread and wine is changed into Your Body and Blood. Oh, Omnipotent Lord, consecrate me, speak over me and change me into Thee." Words of audacious sublimity which only love can inspire! Such was Father Claret, a light and flame, because he bore in his bosom the sun of the Eucharist. Thus is presented the historical basis of the emblem used by the then future Claretian Order. Thus the distinctive sign on the pictures and statues of Father Claret is a resplendent consecrated host on his bosom. And so the world has a key to the mystery of modesty, recollection, unction, and godliness which was so much admired in the holy archbishop. He was an angel of adoration, who in the midst of the world was far from the world; who lived an interior life joy fully in the Divine Presence because he had, day and night, as his Sacramental Guest, the God of the Holy Eucharist. We shall conclude this outline with the words of a Most Serene Infanta of Spain and of an illustrious prelate of the Church. "I must declare," says the Infanta Maria Isabel de Borbon, "that neither my august parents, nor the royal family harbor the least doubt of the sanctity of Archbishop Claret. "I remember very well that he often spoke of his desire to suffer martyrdom. "I saw him in Rome when he was there for the Vatican Council. People were impressed, on seeing him pass through the streets of the Eternal City, by his modesty and attentive demeanor. He looked like a prelate in 'capa magna' bearing the Blessed Sacrament." Let us listen to another authority. One day, Monsignor Lafleche, Bishop of Canada, was conversing familiarly with his missionaries, and speaking of the saintly Father Claret, he said: "I had no dealings with him, but I saw him sometimes. Whenever I saw him during the Vatican Council on the streets of Rome, I found myself tempted to genuflect before him as before the Tabernacle." Later, Monsignor Lafleche read in the biographies of Father Anthony the relation of this extraordinary grace, and then he understood the cause of those Divine radiations of Father Claret. He was a living Ciborium! Taken from: REMINISCENCES OF ST. ANTHONY MARY CLARET by Rev. Juan Echevarria, C.M.F., Ph. D., Imprimatured 1937.   E-Mail HOME-----------CHRIST THE KING-----------CATHOLIC CLASSICS www.catholictradition.org/Priests/claret2-4.htm