09/09/2026
SAINT PETER CLAVER (1581-1654)
September 9th
Nearly two hundred years before the Declaration of Independence proclaimed “that all men are created equal,” two hundred fifty years before the Emancipation Proclamation mandated an end to slavery, three hundred fifty years before Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream”, and four hundred years before the election of an American president boasting African heritage, Peter Claver left his native Spain behind to volunteer for the Jesuit missions in Colombia. There, he was horrified both by slavery as an institution and by the inhuman brutality inflicted upon the slaves. He solemnly vowed to become “the slave of the slaves,” and lived that vow heroically for close to forty years. Not knowing their language, Peter began his ministry among the slaves by using the universal language of practical charity, providing medical care and a tangible though wordless assertion of their human dignity: “We spoke to them not with words but with our hands, kneeling beside them, bathing their faces and bodies, encouraging them with friendly gestures” (see Liturgy of the Hours, Volume 4, p. 2018). Then came evangelization and baptism. Holiness as human wholeness: Peter Claver’s enduring witness.
—Peter Scagnelli
Diocesan Publications
