Blessed Peter Claver

v Intro –This Saturday of the Week of Labor Day – Scriptures tell us of WORK

Ø Work is a four-letter word. At least when it came to the Pharisees, particularly when "work"was done on a Sabbath.

Ø Jesus' encounter with then in the gospel corrects this misguided notion in a powerful way.

Ø In St. Paul's letter to the Colossians we here that it is God's work that has reconciled us to Himself

Ø The work of Blessed Peter Claver rescued the eternal souls of thousands of African slaves

v Blessed Peter Claver

Ø Born in Catalonia, Spain in 1580 (<100 years after Columbus); At 22 entered Jesuits; 1605 met Alphonsus Rodriguez who prophesied his mission; True to this prophesy, 1610 went to Cartagena, Columbia-hub of African slave trade in new world; 10,000/year into this port; Treated like so much livestock

Ø Greeted each ship; ministered to healthy on deck with food, clothing and comfort; then descended into stench of the hull to minister to dying and forsaken.

Ø He served their needs as though they were Christ, his Lord; For 40years he was the “slave of the slaves”; His work produced between 40,000-300,000 baptized.

v St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians could have been told to the slaves by BPC

Ø St. Paul explains 1. This is where you were 2. This is where you are now 3. This is how you got there

Ø “You once were alienated and hostile in mind because of evil deeds”

§ Through ignorance

§ You were captured & will be sold to work as slaves in this foreign land

§ Now, through the gospel you are “holy, without blemish, and irreproachable before him”

Ø But God has done the real work in “God has now reconciled you to Himself”

§ BPC preached the kerygma of the Gospel to them: God loves them and Jesus died, rose and ascending in order to reconcile them to God

§ Because of the charity he provided them, they believed in this God

§ BPC believed that this gospel, “has been preached to every creature under heaven” even you, these slaves who few else regard as human

v Gospel the meaning of “work” is up for debate

Ø The disciples are "gleaning" the leftovers of a wheat field to satisfy their hunger on a Sabbath. - BTW, the Jewish Law provides for an incomplete harvesting for this specific circumstance.

§ The Pharisees, the lawyers of God's law, in their excessive scrupulosity have deemed this action to be "work" and are deeply offended.

§ The Pharisees, over the years have built up a "fence" of regulations around God's law. So high and so deep are these regulations that they have lost sight of the kernel of the Law that is at the heart: "Keep the Lord's Day holy."

Ø Jesus' first response is at their level. He cites a legal precedent, David.

Ø The meaning of Jesus's second response is impactful: “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath."

§ What is the Sabbath but the day on which the Lord is honored, praised and thanked? Surely the Lord is the object of and thus greater than the Sabbath.

§ By saying "The Son of man is the Lord" Jesus is proclaiming His divine nature to them. This inference is not lost on the Pharisees

§ This is the last straw. The plot to kill Jesus begins now

v Most of the Pharisees apparently loved the Law of the Lord more than the Lord.

Ø The power they wielded over the people because of their “expertise” of the Law was what they coveted most.

Ø Most of them failed to recognize him when He came to them. A sad state.

v We begin formation for another year. It is good thing

Ø We may love it - the learning, the fellowship, the common prayer. Let's not lose focus.

Ø We can't love formation, or the things we learn or the clergy we meet more than the Lord we are called to serve.

v Let us ask St. Peter Claver to pray for us that God may:

Ø Sanctify our work in formation

Ø Sanctify the charitable work we undertake now and once ordained and

Give us a heart to become "servants of the slaves" for the love of Christ.