Book of the Week
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Jesus: A Pilgrimage, edited by Fr. James Martin, SJ. Harper One, 2014.
This book can be
listed as a travelogue, a spiritual retreat, a memoir, an historical document based on the pilgrimage to the Holy Land which Father Martin and his friend George made to the lands of Jesus. It contains wise advice interwoven with the adventures of Martin and George, following the paths of Jesus in the Gospels according of the four evangelists.
Martin was about to set out to write the
book about Jesus, when a friend suggested he first make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He followed that advice which enriched his writings in many ways. He could tell about the man Jesus and say, "I was there!" Through trial and error, the two companions traversed the lands of Jesus, seeking the actual places where Jesus did such and such. Finding the exact places was not always easy for history does not actually know where some events happened.
Rugged terrain, extremely hot weather, lack of good transportation did not always make for good tourists' explorations, but Martin's acquaintance with the Scriptures enabled him to write an interesting and deeply spiritual book. He carefully included many experiences of his life as a Jesuit and show how these have marked him to be a lover of Jesus in the lands of Jesus, and Jesus in the Scriptures. Readers of this five hundred
page book will hopefully attain a deeper and more solid love for the Jesus of the Scriptures, as Messiah, Saviour, brother, and friend.
(Thanks to Sr. Irene Hartman OP for this review.)
Hardback, Kindle, Audiobook
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Saint of the Week
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St. Peter Claver, S.J.: (1581-1654) September 9 A native of Spain, young Jesuit Peter Claver left his homeland forever in 1610 to be a missionary in the colonies of the New World. He sailed into Cartagena (now in Colombia), a rich port city washed by the Caribbean. He was ordained there in 1615.
By this time the slave trade had been established in the Americas for nearly 100 years, and Cartagena was
a chief center for it. Ten thousand slaves poured into the port each year after crossing the Atlantic from West Africa under conditions so foul and inhuman that an estimated one-third of the passengers died in transit. Although the practice of slave-trading was condemned by Pope Paul III and later labeled "supreme villainy" by Pius IX, it continued to flourish.
Peter Claver's predecessor, Jesuit
Father Alfonso de Sandoval, had devoted himself to the service of the slaves for 40 years before Claver arrived to continue his work, declaring himself "the slave of the Negroes forever."
As soon as a slave ship entered the port, Peter Claver moved into its infested hold to minister to the ill-treated and exhausted passengers. After the slaves were herded out of the ship like chained animals and
shut up in nearby yards to be gazed at by the crowds, Claver plunged in among them with medicines, food, bread, brandy, lemons and tobacco. With the help of interpreters he gave basic instructions and assured his brothers and sisters of their human dignity and God's saving love. During the 40 years of his ministry, Claver instructed and baptized an estimated 300,000 slaves.
His apostolate extended
beyond his care for slaves. He became a moral force, indeed, the apostle of Cartagena. He preached in the city square, gave missions to sailors and traders as well as country missions, during which he avoided, when possible, the hospitality of the planters and owners and lodged in the slave quarters instead.
After four years of sickness which forced the saint to remain inactive and largely
neglected, he died on September 8, 1654. The city magistrates, who had previously frowned at his solicitude for the black outcasts, ordered that he should be buried at public expense and with great pomp.
He was canonized in 1888, and Pope Leo XIII declared him the worldwide patron of missionary work among black slaves.
americancatholic.org site
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