THE DAILY GOSPEL

September 9, 2016 (Friday) 23rd Week in Ordinary Time Psalter: Week 3/(White) St. Peter Claver, priest

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

mighty God! 1st Reading: 1 Cor 9:16-19, 22b-27

Because I cannot boast of announcing the gospel: I am bound to do it. Woe to me, if I do not preach the gospel! If I preached voluntarily, I could expect my reward, but I have been trusted with this office, against my will. How can I, then, deserve a reward? In announcing the gospel, I will do it freely, without making use of the rights given to me by the gospel.

So, feeling free with everybody, I have become everybody’s slave, in order to gain a greater number.

So, I made myself all things to all people, in order to save, by all possible means, some of them. This, I do, for the gospel, so that I, too, have a share of it.

Have you not learned anything from the stadium? Many run, but only one gets the prize. Run, therefore, intending to win it, as athletes, who impose upon themselves a rigorous discipline. Yet, for them the wreath is of laurels which wither, while for us, it does not wither.

So, then, I run, knowing where I go. I box, but not aimlessly in the air. I punish my body and control it, lest, after preaching to others, I myself should be rejected. Gospel: Lk 6:39-42

And Jesus offered this example, “Can a blind person lead another blind person? Surely both will fall into a ditch. A disciple is not above the master; but when fully trained, he will be like the master. So why do you pay attention to the speck in your brother’s eye, while you have a log in your eye, and are not conscious of it? How can you say to your neighbor, ‘Friend, let me take this speck out of your eye,’ when you can’t remove the log in your own? You hypocrite! First remove the log from your own eye, and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your neighbor’s eye. Reflection:

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 of 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 to go as a missionary to Colombia 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 were 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 and 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 him universal patron of the mission to the negroes.

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