Two days after the Feast of St. Claret, I landed in Vic on a train from Barcelona. The pastoral landscape outside was green and refreshing and carried me back to memories. In a travel of about one hour, I tried to recollect the places and incidents in the life of Claret that I had read in his autobiography many years ago. Vic came before I had anticipated and I hurried down the train with the mental map of our house, thanks to Google map. But, as I was exiting the station someone called out my name loudly in an otherwise quiet station. Fr. Carlos Sánchez, a missionary from Peru. He is an authority on the biography and history of Claret and his times.
After the lunch, Fr. Sánchez almost realigned my memories on Claret with fresh anecdotes that I had not heard before. The high point was the mass at the crypt of the Church of Claret. Standing by the sepulcher with the mortal remains of Claret, Fr. Sánchez narrated to me the story of a Carpenter of the house in Vic who protected the remains of Claret buried in his house during the revolution of 1936. Seeing the letter to the General written by Fr. Peter Bertrans, the custodian of the Claret body during the revolution time, brought tears to my eyes. Fr. Peter requested the executors who were pointing at him with their guns, to grant him his last wish. the gunpoint, Fr. Peter requested the executors to grant him his last wish. He was given a few minutes for prayer. He miraculously escaped with those few minutes to write that letter to the General to indicate where he and the carpenter together had secretly buried the body of Claret. Without this letter, we would have lost all the mortal remains of Claret!
Fr. Jijo, director of Claretian Publications in Macao, visit the publishing house where Fr. Claret published his first books in Vic
Travelling through the township of Vic brought a cascade of memories from Claret’s life. Almost every byway in the township had been trodden by Claret. They all hold little little stories of him. I walked on probably the same cobblestones that he had stepped on, touched the same walls that he had blessed with his saintly fragrance. So, seeing the shoes in the museum that carried his feet on millions of steps brought to me an inexplicable reverence and recollection.
In the evening, having dinner with the community of the happy veteran missionaries there took me out of the recollected mood. In the following morning, as I was leaving for Barcelona, Fr. Sánchez accompanied me to the railway station and bid an emotional good bye. As the train started to move a little misty fog was beginning to blanket Vic.
Fr. Jijo Kandamkulathil, cmf.
Claretian Publications Macau 樂仁出版社