FEBRUARY

15

 

1850. Claret is so overwhelmed by various jobs, that on this day he has felt tempted to die… [because of] the storm I am in.

1853. On his first pastoral visit, Claret arrives from Tiguabos to Saltadero (now Guantanamo); in both places he has found that the oils were from before 1837.

1856. He manages to sign his name with his arm still bandaged after the attack.

EARLY EXPANSION (1870-1899)

ANNALES CONGREGATIONIS

At the beginning, the chronicles of the missions and other ministries were published in the magazine La Lectura Catolica [Catholic Reading], published in Madrid and directed by Fr. Jose Salamero, a great friend and benefactor of the missionaries. All the houses were subscribed. Fr. Jose Mata also collaborated in it. But it did not fulfill the needs of the Congregation. On November 20, 1885, the General Government published the first issue of Boletin Religioso de la Congregacion [Religious Bulletin of the Congregation], which later, in January 1889, would be called Annales de la Congregacion [Annals of the Congregation], until the General Chapter of 1934, which included the official documents in Latin and it was renamed Annales Congregationis. Its purpose was to inform about everything that happened in the Congregation, but also to fill the void caused by the prohibition of the habitual reading of newspapers and magazines, publishing a selection of the most important news from all over the world. At first, subscribers outside the Congregation were admitted, but soon the General Government became aware of inappropriateness and it became an exclusively internal bulletin.

MANUEL Jose MIURA

Collaborator of Claret (1815-?)

Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic). He was born on February 12, 1815. In 1827 he emigrated to Santiago, Cuba. He was ordained in 1839. He was the pastor of the Church of Santo Tomas Apostol. In 1852 he was entrusted with the position of a public prosecutor. Father Claret wrote of him: He is a good man who I trust completely…very zealous and virtuous. He took over as canon of Santiago, Cuba in 1857. The Saint appreciated him very much, as seen by these expressions addressed to him: You already know that there has always been, is and will be the best peace and harmony of opinions between us. When the Dean of Santiago, Cuba died, the Archbishop Primo Calvo Lope asked Father Claret to propose Miura. And the Saint, according to his own confession, did it instantly, because it was the will of the current Archbishop, and also because it was my will, you know well that I love him very much. Mother Paris appointed him as executor of her property in Cuba.

Presbyteral Ordination

On the thirteenth of June, 1835, I was ordained to the priesthood, not by the bishop of Vich, who had an illness of which he was to die on July 5, but by the bishop of Solsona. Before my priestly ordination I made a forty-day retreat. I have never made a retreat so full of sufferings and trials but neither, perhaps, so replete with great graces. I realized this on the day I said my First Mass, June 21, the feast of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, a patron of the Congregation, as well as on my ordination day, the feast of St. Anthony, my own patron saint. (Aut 102)

FOR PERSONAL REFLECTION

 

  • Have any of your most important experiences been accompanied by grief and temptations?
  • Did you think you recognized in them the abundant grace of the Lord?
  • Pray with the words of St. Paul: “Stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands.”
  • Invite others to be “fishers of men.”

 

“The perfect union in this life through grace and love demands that
they live in darkness to all the objects of sight, hearing, and imagination,
and to everything comprehensible to the heart, which signifies the soul.”

(St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, II.4.4.)

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