Greeting from the CESC in times of global crisis and self-isolation
Dear brothers and friends. From the Mother House of our Congregation, we send you our fraternal greetings. Alongside the mortal remains of our Father and Founder we join in prayer with the entire Claretian Family asking the Lord for the victims of the coronavirus pandemic.
In these weeks, many of us, being missionaries, cannot go out onto the streets. In this Mission House, from its origins and for many years, its missionaries knew very well how to combine the time dedicated to the mission and during the preceding time to prepare themselves at home by cultivating prayer, fraternal life and formation. (more…)
Presentation of a fundamental book about Claret, in Vic
On November 27, 2019, at 7:30 p.m., the presentation of the book “Las misiones populares del Padre Claret en Cataluña entre 1840 y 1850. Un camino de evangelización en tiempos de crisis” (“The popular missions of Father Claret in Catalonia between 1840 and 1850. An evangelisation path in times of crisis”) took place”; it has been published by Claret Publishing Co., Barcelona 2019, 477 pp.
It is actually the result of the Doctoral Thesis defended by Fr. Carlos Sánchez Miranda, cmf, at the Pontificia Universidad Comillas of Madrid (Spain). It is also the first volume of the “Urget” collection, which will offer studies on the figure of Saint Anthony Mary Claret (1807-1870), his life, mission, text and context.
A film about Claret
For years the Claretian Missionaries and other groups of the Claretian Family had been thinking about making a film about Saint Anthony Mary Claret. His life has all the necessary features to make it attractive and “edifying”, if this last adjective can still be used at a time when only the “villains” seem to enjoys good press. Perhaps the complexity of the character, the variety of settings in which he moved (Catalonia, Canary Islands, Cuba, Madrid, a number of places in Spain, Lisbon, Paris, Rome, Fontfroide) and, above all, the high costs involved in making a film ended up discouraging us. But everything began to change in the wake of the film “A forbidden God,” which tells the story of the Claretian martyrs of Barbastro. The good acceptance on the part of many people – not always on the part of a certain review that tends to disregard everything related to the Church – encouraged us to embark on the adventure (more…)
San Antonio Maria Claret in my life
Antoni Daufí, cmf
I was born in Tortosa (Tarragona) in 1929. Fr. Claret, on his apostolic journeys across Catalonia, never reached Tortosa, nor have ever been any Claretian Missionaries in my land. Therefore, as a child, I never heard of Claret, nor knew any Claretian. It was due to circumstances of the Spanish civil war from 1936 to 1939 that my family had to move to Vic where, at the end of the war, I first came to know Saint Anthony Maria Claret through the contact with the Claretian Missionaries of this town. At that time I was 11 years old and it was during those postwar years that I began to go quite often to the (improvised) church of La Mercè, where the tomb of Saint Anthony Maria Claret was venerated, at the time being a Beat. (more…)
May 29
“In the case of children, the only work required is that of planting, whereas adults require both weeding and planting. There is yet another advantage: grownups are often won over by the little ones, and parents are won over by their children because children are like so many pieces of their parents’ hearts. When the children receive a little holy card as a prize for their attendance and diligence [at catechism], their parents and other adults read them at home out of curiosity, and this often results in their conversion, as I know from experience.”
(Aut 275).
EVANGELICAL INGENUITY
The most widespread opinion in the field (more…)
Fr. Josep Rovira, cmf, member of the CESC, explains how young Anthony Claret lived situations that led him to rethink the meaning of his life and give a radical vocational response. We pray that the celebration of World Youth Day may become an opportunity for many young people to deepen their experience of encountering Christ and dare to follow and announce him.
