SEPTEMBER 9, 2016 (FRIDAY)

St. Peter Claver, priest

1st Reading:

     1 Cor. 9:16-19,22b-27:

        Brothers and Sisters:

        If I preached the Gospel, this is no reason for me to boast, for an obligation has been imposed on me, and woe to me if I do not preached it! If I do so willing, I have a recompense, but if unwillingly, then I have been entrusted with a stewardship.What then is my recompense? That, when I preach, I offer the Gospel free of charge so as not to make full use of right in the Gospel.

        Although I am free in regard to all, I have made myself a slave to all so as to win over as many as possible. I have become all things to all, to save at least some. All this I do for the sake of the Gospel, so that I too may have a share in it.

        Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win. Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one. Thus I do not run  aimlessly; I do not fight as if I were shadowboxing. No I drive my body and train it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.

Psalm

     Ps: 84:3, 4, 5-6, 12: How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, mighty God!

        My soul  yearns and pines for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

        Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest in which she puts her young. Your altars, O Lord of hosts, my king and my God!

        Blessed they who dwell in your house! continually they praise you. Blessed the men whose strength you are! their hearts are set upon the pilgrimage.

        For a sun and a shield is the Lord God; grace and glory he bestows; The Lord withholds no good thing from those who walk in sincerity.

Gospel

     Lk. 6:39-42

        Jesus told His disciples a parable;

        "Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? No disciple is superior to the teacher; but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his teacher. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?

         How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me remove that splinter in your eye,' when you do not even notice the wooden beam in your eye?

        You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother's eye."

     Today we remember one of the truly great modern saints,

Peter Claver. And the first reading was especially selected for today because it contains these words to the apostle Paul: "I have become everybody's slave," a statement which summarizes perfectly Peter Claver's life.

     Born in Spain in 1580, Peter volunteered in South America. He was ordained a Jesuit priest there in Carthagena in 1616 and worked in that city's port for the next 38 years ( until his death in 1654) among the black slaves. They came from Africa, where they kidnapped by white traders and brought to South America. Every time a slave ship landed at Carthagena, Peter would enter the infested fold to take care of the dead, dying ang\d sick. He instructed and baptized the slaves, helped them on the plantations, and brought 300,000 of them to Christ. He did this by using methods far in advance of the time: working through native interpreters, the tribal structures, and with visual aids.

     This great saint liked to call himself "the slave of the negroes forever." In 1896 Pope Leo XIII proclaimed universal patron of the mission to the negroes.

Did you know that: St. Peter Claver is also known as the slave of the blacks and the patron of seafarers.