During the month of May 1844, Fr. Claret preached no less than 36 sermons, “with extraordinary eloquence and with plentiful examples”, in the famous basilica of Santa María del Mar, in the city of Barcelona. An eyewitness has told us in a booklet published that same year. He says that, despite the great capacity of that temple with three naves and without a choir in the centre (as it is the case, on the other hand, in the city’s cathedral), the church was completely filled every day. Furthermore, people waited one, two or more hours before the sermon, in order to find a free seat. Claret dedicated the remaining time to the administration of the sacrament of penance to hundreds of people in the same church, or even in his room. He was staying at the house of Don Antonio Nadal. What was the apostle preaching about? The author of the little book explains it to us in his own way, in verse and in the faulty Catalan of that time. The title of the publication is: “Poesías dedicadas a la felis memoria del célebre y admirable predicador apostolich catalá Mosen Anton Claret” (Poems dedicated to the happy memory of the famous and admirable Catalan apostolic preacher Mosen Anton Claret), Barcelona 1844, pp. 48. The autor of the verses signs as “lo aficionat I. S.” (the amateur I.S.). It goes without saying that the poetic vein is very rudimental, but it allows us to glimpse the reaction of the people and the effects of that preaching.
Apparently, it happened in one of those days that, as he was leaving the basilica, someone from the crowd waiting outside to greet him asked Claret how he could preach so much and with so much inspiration; To which he replied that lapidary phrase that now presides over the entrance to his tomb in the church-sepulchre dedicated to him in Vic: “Fall in love with Christ and your fellowmen, and you will do things much greater than those I do”.
The booklet by the anonymous “amateur” contains 148 quatrains, plus a few ten-line stanzas, an acrostic on Claret’s name and surname, a “prescription” to cure himself of the sin of blasphemy and a “remedy” to preserve oneself and be able to cure the abominable vice of impurity.
For more details of Claret’s stay in Barcelona, see: Cristóbal Fernández, “El Beato Padre Antonio María Claret. Historia documentada de su vida y empresas”, Vol. I, Barcelona 1941, pp. 178-185; Juan Manuel Lozano, “Una vida al servicio del Evangelio. Antonio María Claret”, Barcelona 1985, p. 94; Carlos Sánchez, “Las misiones populares del Padre Claret en Cataluña entre 1840 y 1850. Un camino de evangelización en tiempos de crisis”, Barcelona 2019, pp. 121-126.
On this Poetry section of the website, we will gradually offer you the contents of the booklet by that exceptional eyewitness.
P. Josep Rovira, CMF