St. Peter Claver (BK 058)

St. Peter Claver (1580-1654) was a Spanish Jesuit priest and missionary. In 1610, St. Peter volunteered to serve in the New Kingdom of Granada in the Americas, which encompassed present-day Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela. There he worked for forty years ministering to slaves upon their arrival at Cartagena, a major hub in the Transatlantic slave trade, and on the plantations in the neighbouring countryside. His tireless efforts not only to convert the slaves to Catholicism by preaching Christ crucified but to ameliorate their sufferings earned him the epithet “Slave of the Africans”. + Here St. Peter is shown clad in Jesuit garb—a black cassock and collared cape. He holds a simple brown wooden cross and a crown of thorns, symbols of Jesus as “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). The image is enclosed in an inner frame reminiscent of a Gothic eight-petalled rose (or wheel) window; the corners of the simple, square outer frame are filled with heraldic thistles. + St. Peter Claver died on 8 September 1654 of natural causes after a long illness. He is patron saint of Inter-racial justice, African Americans, African missions, slaves, and the Republic of Colombia. + Feast: September 9 + Image Credit (BK 058): Antique image of S[aint] Petrus [Peter] Claver, S.J., originally published in chromolithography by B. Kühlen, Mönchengladbach, Germany, unnumbered Jesuit Series, late 19th century, from the designer’s private collection of religious ephemera. + Feel free to change fonts and colours!