Saint Anthony Mary Claret (1807–1870)

Birth into a Family of Weavers (23 December 1807)

Antoni Maria Claret i Clarà was born on 23 December 1807 at Sallent, a textile town in inland Catalonia, some fifteen kilometres from Manresa, in the province of Barcelona.^[11][12] He was the fifth of eleven children of Joan Claret, a modest woollen manufacturer, and Josefa Clarà. The family home was a workshop: spinning, weaving and living to the rhythm of the looms. The child grew up in a deeply Catholic Catalonia, marked by the Carlist wars and political instability, but where popular faith remained alive.

Very early on, little Antoni stood out through intense piety and a keen sensitivity to eternity. He himself would recount in his Autobiography how, as a child, the thought of the fate of the damned moved him so deeply that it kept him from sleeping.^[13]

"What affected me most and delighted me was thinking about eternity… Always, always, always! I tried to understand it, but I could not." — Anthony Mary Claret, Autobiography, no. 8^[14]

The Textile Worker Turned Specialist in Barcelona

At twelve, Antoni was already a weaver.^[15] Gifted and ambitious, he moved at about eighteen to Barcelona to perfect his cloth-making skills and learn the programming of the Jacquard looms, the cutting-edge technique of the nascent textile industry.^[16][17] In parallel he studied Latin, French and engraving. For a time the young man dreamed of becoming the best manufacturer in Catalonia; he had a head for business, a taste for drawing and remarkable practical intelligence — so many talents he would later place at the service of evangelization and the apostolate of the press.

But a word of Scripture seized him and turned his ambitions upside down: "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, if he loses his own soul?" (Mt 16:26). The attraction of the world yielded before the call of God.

"Quid prodest homini…: What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, if he loses his own soul? These words struck me like an arrow piercing my heart." — Anthony Mary Claret, Autobiography, no. 68^[18]

Vocation and Ordination (13 June 1835)

First attracted by the Charterhouse, then led by his discernment towards the priesthood, Claret entered the diocesan seminary of Vic in 1829.^[19] His theological formation, cut short by political turmoil and civil war, remained incomplete; but his bishop, perceiving an uncommon grace in him, ordained him priest on 13 June 1835, on the feast of Saint Anthony of Padua — hence the religious first name he would adopt.^[20][21]

He first exercised a parish ministry at Sallent, then at Viladrau and Girona. Desiring a more radically given life, he left for Rome to place himself at the disposal of Propaganda for the missions, and even attempted the Jesuit novitiate; but fragile health — a pain in his leg which he interpreted as a sign — forced him to give up and return to Catalonia.^[22][23] God was waiting for him elsewhere: not in the cloister, but on the roads.

Itinerant Preacher of the Catalan Countryside

Back home, Claret revealed himself as an incomparable popular preacher. From May 1843 onwards, bearing the title of apostolic missionary, he tirelessly travelled the villages of Catalonia, preaching missions, retreats and spiritual exercises with an endurance that amazed his contemporaries.^[24][25] His preaching, simple, ardent and popular, brought whole parishes back to the sacraments. He sometimes preached several times a day, walked from town to town, and heard confessions for hours on end.

His zeal disturbed as much as it converted: in a Spain shaken by anticlericalism, his popularity alarmed the liberals. In 1848, under threat, he was sent to preach in the Canary Islands.

The Canaries Apostolate (1848-1849)

For nearly fifteen months, from February 1848 to May 1849, Claret evangelized the Canary archipelago, leading a vast campaign of popular missions there that left a lasting memory.^[26][27][28] He is today co-patron of the diocese of Las Palmas, with the Virgen del Pino.^[29] This apostolic exile matured a conviction in him: a lone missionary, however ardent, cannot suffice for the task. What is needed is a community of men animated by the same fire.

The Apostolate of the Press: the Librería Religiosa

With the practical mind of one trained in industry, Claret grasped very early the power of the printed word as an instrument of evangelization. In 1848, he founded in Barcelona the Librería Religiosa, a popular publishing house distributing books, pamphlets and devotional leaflets at very low prices.^[30] The figures are staggering: in eighteen years, the work launched more than 2.8 million books, 2.5 million small books and over 4.2 million leaflets.^[31]

He himself wrote relentlessly: he is credited with more than 140 works — catechisms, manuals of Christian life, works of spirituality, books of practical morals, treatises on agriculture and rural economy, even writings for the preservation of the Catalan language.^[32][33][34] The most famous, The Straight and Sure Path to Reach Heaven (Camino recto y seguro para llegar al cielo), would go through hundreds of editions. This intuition of evangelization through the media would earn him the title of patron of the Catholic press.

The Foundation at Vic (16 July 1849)

On 16 July 1849, on the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Claret gathered five young priests in a cell of the seminary of Vic and founded the Congregation of the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, universally known today as the Claretians (CMF).^[35][36] The work began in utter poverty — a few men, one room, one ideal — but it carried the seed of worldwide fruitfulness: by the dawn of the 21st century, the congregation would count more than 3,000 members in hundreds of houses on five continents.^[37] It received pontifical approval from Pius IX on 22 December 1865.^[38]

The "Definition of the Missionary"

The soul of the foundation is contained in a few lines Claret wrote in his Autobiography (no. 494), which he wanted every missionary to carry on his person, on "a little scrap of paper". This "Definition of the Missionary" remains the reference text of Claretian spirituality.^[39][40]

"A Son of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a man who burns with charity and who sets on fire wherever he goes; he ardently desires and seeks by every means to inflame all men with the fire of divine love. Nothing daunts him: he rejoices in privations, faces labours, embraces sacrifices, delights in slanders, exults in the torments and sufferings he endures, and glories in the cross of Jesus Christ. His sole concern is to follow and imitate Jesus Christ in work, suffering, and constant and single-minded zeal for the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls." — Anthony Mary Claret, Autobiography, no. 494^[41]

The key word is fire: a missionary is a man ablaze who spreads the blaze. This image, inherited from the prophets ("I have come to cast fire upon the earth", Lk 12:49), sums up Claret's whole life: not voluntarist activism, but the overflow of a burning charity received from the Heart of Mary and the Heart of Christ.

The Religious of Mary Immaculate (with Antonia París)

The masculine missionary charism is answered by a feminine branch. At Cuba, on 25 August 1855, Claret co-founded with the Catalan religious María Antonia París the Congregation of the Religious of Mary Immaculate (Claretian Missionary Sisters), devoted to teaching and evangelization.^[42][43] Antonia París, a mystic and great spiritual figure, was recognized as Venerable by John Paul II in 1993; her cause for beatification is underway.^[44] The Claretian family — religious men, religious women and associated lay people — today prolongs its founder's impetus throughout the world.

An Unforeseen Appointment

While he dreamed only of popular missions, Claret was appointed, at the request of Queen Isabella II, Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba by Pius IX: preconized on 20 May 1850, he was consecrated bishop at Vic on 6 October 1850.^[45][46][47] Before leaving, he made three Marian pilgrimages — to Our Lady of the Pillar (Zaragoza), to Montserrat and to Fussimanya.^[48] He landed at Santiago de Cuba on 16 February 1851, taking possession of an immense diocese left without a resident bishop for years, where clergy were scarce and religious practice had collapsed.^[49]

The Reform of a Neglected Diocese

The missionary archbishop accomplished colossal work in a few years. He reorganized the seminary, restored discipline among the clergy, visited the whole of his vast diocese three times, preaching mission after mission. Above all, he tackled the moral disorder of irregular unions: in two years, he had more than 9,000 marriages living in irregularity regularized and validated.^[50][51]

"He visited his diocese three times, giving missions everywhere; in less than two years, more than nine thousand marriages were validated." — after the Catholic Encyclopedia^[52]

Care for the Poor: Schools, Trades, Savings Bank

Faithful to his working-class origins, Claret had a genius for concrete social works. He erected hospitals and schools, created trade schools (vocational training) for disadvantaged children, and founded credit and savings banks at the service of the poor — an initiative popular piety would later honour under the patronage of savings banks (a customary patronage, not taken up by the official liturgical notices).^[53][54][55] In Cuba, a land still marked by slavery, he defended the dignity of the humblest and promoted agricultural education. His work combined evangelization and human advancement, long before the Church formalized her social doctrine.

Persecutions and the Holguín Attack (1 February 1856)

So many reforms aroused violent opposition: injured landowners, concubinaries called back to order, anticlericals. Fifteen attempts against his life are recorded — the Catholic Encyclopedia specifies: "no fewer than fifteen attempts".^[56][57] The gravest occurred at Holguín, on 1 February 1856: a man, Antonio Pérez, attacked him with a razor; the blow, aimed at the throat, slashed his cheek from ear to chin.^[58][59] Claret would bear the scar for life.

Far from holding a grudge, he obtained from the authorities the commutation of his aggressor's death sentence and regarded the trial as a grace:

"I call this a favour, for I hold it to be a great favour from Heaven, which gave me the greatest joy and for which I continually thank God and the Blessed Virgin." — Anthony Mary Claret, Autobiography^[60]

Confessor to Isabella II

On 18 March 1857, Queen Isabella II recalled Claret to Spain to make him her confessor.^[61][62] The archbishop accepted out of obedience, but laid down his conditions: he would not reside at the palace, would accept neither salary nor honours, would refuse to meddle in politics and would remain free to preach. He resigned the see of Santiago de Cuba and received the titular see of Trajanopolis. This court period, which he lived as a detached man, would be for him a constant source of sufferings and slanders — which he welcomed in the spirit of his Definition.

Rector of the Escorial

The queen entrusted him with the direction of the royal monastery-college of the Escorial, which he made for several years a centre of Christian culture: he installed there a scientific laboratory, a natural history museum, a library, and schools of music and languages.^[63][64] The former weaver, a self-taught enthusiast of sciences and arts, placed everything at the service of formation. In parallel he continued to preach, write and direct souls, multiplying retreats and missions whenever he could.

The Offering as a Victim (Aranjuez, 1862)

In May 1862, in the chapel of the palace of Aranjuez, as he finished writing his Autobiography, Claret offered himself to Jesus and Mary as a victim, accepting in advance every suffering, "even death itself", for the salvation of souls — and he notes that "the Lord accepted my offering".^[65][66] This victim offering, characteristic of the great 19th-century Catholic mysticism, inwardly prepared the extraordinary graces he would receive the following year.

Behind the man of action hides one of the greatest Spanish mystics of the 19th century. Two loves dominate his whole interior life: the Eucharist and the Virgin Mary.^[67][68]

The Grace of La Granja: the Eucharist Preserved (26 August 1861)

On 26 August 1861, at seven o'clock in the evening, while at prayer in the church of the Rosary at La Granja de San Ildefonso (Segovia), Claret received an exceptional mystical grace: the permanent preservation of the sacramental species within him, from one Communion to the next.^[69][70]

"On 26 August 1861, while at prayer in the church of the Rosary at La Granja, at seven o'clock in the evening, the Lord granted me the great grace of keeping the sacramental species within me and of having, day and night, the Most Blessed Sacrament present in my breast." — Anthony Mary Claret, Autobiography^[71]

According to his own testimony and Claretian studies, this privilege — rare in the history of mysticism, also attested in a few saints such as Saint Catherine of Siena or Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi — accompanied him until his death, nearly nine years.^[72] Christ literally became the permanent centre of his life: his burning charity had its source in this uninterrupted Eucharistic presence.

The Immaculate Heart of Mary

Claret's whole spirituality is Marian. He placed his congregation under the patronage of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in which he saw the source of apostolic charity and the model of the missionary. A witness and fervent promoter of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception proclaimed by Pius IX in 1854, he made the Heart of Mary the hearth from which the missionary draws the fire he must spread. Claretian devotion to the Immaculate Heart prepared from afar the Marian developments of the 20th century, from Fatima to the consecration of the world to the Heart of Mary.

"As the arrow shot by a mighty hand reaches its target, so the Son of the Heart of Mary, shot by Mary, flies and reaches everywhere." — Claretian image from the Definition of the Missionary, after the Autobiography^[73]

The Revolution of 1868 and Exile

The revolution of September 1868 (the Gloriosa) overthrew Isabella II. Claret followed the royal family into exile and reached Paris, then Rome, where he was received by Pius IX.^[74][75] Faithful to the end, he disowned neither the fallen queen nor his mission, even as slander continued to pursue him.

The First Vatican Council and Papal Infallibility

In 1869-1870, Claret took part in the First Vatican Council, where he stood among the resolute defenders of papal infallibility, proclaimed by the constitution Pastor Aeternus on 18 July 1870.^[76][77] His fidelity to the See of Peter, constant throughout his life, found there its doctrinal crowning. Exhausted and ill, he had to leave Rome before the end of the council.

Death at Fontfroide (24 October 1870)

First a refugee at Prades in the Pyrenees, then threatened even in his exile, Claret found shelter with the Cistercian monks of the Abbey of Fontfroide, near Narbonne. There he died, worn out by work and trials, on 24 October 1870, aged 62.^[78][79] His remains would later be transferred to Vic, in Catalonia, where his tomb is venerated.

Beatification (1934) and Canonization (1950)

Declared venerable by Leo XIII in 1899, Anthony Mary Claret was beatified by Pius XI on 25 February 1934, then canonized by Pius XII on 7 May 1950, during the Holy Year.^[80][81] The next day, 8 May 1950, Pius XII received in audience the Spanish pilgrims who had come to Rome for the canonization and addressed to them a discourse devoted to the new saint.^[82] The Church recognizes in him the model of the total missionary: preacher, writer, bishop, founder and mystic, entirely consumed by zeal for the salvation of souls. His liturgical feast is fixed on 24 October.^[83]

Patronages and Claretian Posterity

Popular piety and biographers honour Saint Anthony Mary Claret as patron of weavers and textile merchants — a nod to his origins —, of the Catholic press and the media apostolate, and of savings banks^[84][85]; he is also co-patron of the diocese of Las Palmas (Canary Islands), with the Virgen del Pino^[86]. The official liturgical notices (Vatican News), for their part, present him as founder of the Congregation and Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, without mentioning these patronages.^[87] But his most living legacy remains the Claretian family: Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Religious of Mary Immaculate and countless lay people, today present on five continents, prolong the fire of the Definition of the Missionary.

His figure speaks with singular force to the contemporary age: he was an apostle of communication a century and a half before the digital era, convinced that every honest means — speech, print, schools, social works — could serve the one thing necessary: "the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls".

• Saint Peter Julian Eymard (1811-1868) — a contemporary of Claret, founder and apostle of the Eucharist, another great figure of 19th-century Eucharistic mysticism.
• Saint John Bosco (1815-1888) — another 19th-century missionary founder, apostle of youth and of the popular press.
• Saint Daniel Comboni (1831-1881) — a contemporary missionary bishop, a founder wholly given to evangelization.
• Saint Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787) — Doctor of the Church and master of popular preaching and Marian devotion, whose heir Claret is.
• The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception (1854) — proclaimed during Claret's lifetime, at the heart of his spirituality of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
• The First Vatican Council (1869-1870) — where Claret defended papal infallibility.