Happy Feast Day of the Father Claret

Missionaries, sent to Proclaim the Gospel, with the trust and tenderness of Mary, embodying the words and gestures of the Lord…

Today, October 24, 2024, after having lived three days, three moments of preparation: Go, Invite, to the Banquet, we celebrate with the entire Claretian Family the Solemnity of Saint Anthony Mary Claret. 

This year, the feast falls within the framework of the synodal, missionary, and merciful Church, and on the day of the publication of Pope Francis’s fourth Encyclical dedicated to human and divine love: ‘Dilexit nos’ (‘He loved us’). Two months before the start of the 2025 jubilee, Pope Francis dedicates this document to love as the key to entering the mystery of existence. It is the words of Jesus and His way of loving humanity that can speak to the heart of every human being who is a brother.

Celebrating the feast of Claret means for us renewing our commitment to care for the proclamation of the Gospel from the experience of the Love of God the Father, a Love that He has for all humanity, and inviting others to have this same experience of knowing, loving, and serving God: “I wish that I could make you known, loved, and served by all creation. This is my only desire; the rest is not worth bothering about. My God, how good you are!” (Aut 641)

Claret deeply feels that the Father who loves him personally also loves others equally. Therefore, he cannot live his filiation without living brotherhood in a missionary key: “My neighbor, I love you because God wants me to love you… I love you and out of love for you I will teach you… the virtues you must practice; and I will accompany you along the road of good works…” (Aut. 448)

Happy feast day, sisters, friends, and laypeople with whom we share the Charism, Claretian Family, collaborators, and benefactors!

N.B. On this very special day, we offer the transcription (done by Angeles Muñoz rmi) of the testimony of our sister Gertrudis Barril, given in Reus on May 29, 1889, as a contribution to the informative process for the Beatification Cause of Father Claret.

The sisters of the General Team

Priscilla, Amilbia, Beatriz, Thushari, Catherine, Lidia

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Here is the transcription of the testimony of our sister Gertrudis Barril: