The Great Eucharistic Grace of Anthony Mary Claret
and it’s Apostolic Significance
-- Dr. Noble Mannarath, CMF
1. Introduction
2. The Great Eucharistic Grace
3. The Apostolic Significance of the Eucharistic Grace
(i). A Grace of Union with Christ his Head
(ii). An Intense Desire for Prayer
(iii). A Revitalized Apostolic Commitment
4. The Fusion of ‘Martha and Mary’ in Claret
5. Conclusion
Abbreviations
1. Introduction
In the apostolic spirituality and in the mystical experiences of Saint Anthony Mary Claret,
Holy Eucharist played a paramount role. The Eucharistic devotion and the Eucharistic
centred life of Claret was one that dominated all through his life. His faithful and regular
fulfilment of the Sunday obligations of attending Mass, receiving communion and
constant visit to the Blessed Sacrament from the early childhood well attests to this fact.1 It
is important to note that ‘the conversion’ of young Anthony was actualized during the
celebration of Holy Mass in Barcelona, where the Word of God went deeply ‘like an
arrow in his heart.’2 The various writings of Anthony Claret, both autobiographical and
others, confirms how vital and affluent was the mystery of the Eucharist in the life of this
Eucharistic Saint. The apex of all the Eucharistic centred life of this great Saint is certainly
the extraordinary grace of conserving the Eucharistic Species in his heart from the
reception of one Holy Communion to the next.
According to John Mary Lozano, what distinguishes our Saint from the other great Latin
Saints is “the pre-eminent role of the Eucharist plays in his mystical experiences, both as a
source of illumination and as a means of mystical transformation.”3 For him, the basic
characteristics of his Eucharistic life were consisted of the three components of Holy Mass,
the Holy Communion and the Eucharistic Adoration.4 All the more, Claret’s mystical life was
eminently Eucharistic. Most of his mystical graces were related to the Eucharist and took
place either during Mass or before the Blessed Sacrament; in such a way that the Eucharist
was the Sacrament of the mystical union for our great Saint. For Saint Anthony Mary
Claret Holy Eucharist was the privileged place to encounter Jesus Christ, firstly as the
Real Presence, then as the Sacrifice and later as Communion.
2. The Great Eucharistic Grace
The summit of Anthony Mary’s Claret’s devotion to the Eucharistic Lord and the
conformity with Christ the Redeemer was the Great Grace of preserving the Eucharistic
species in his heart. Claret describes the account of this great grace in the Lights and Graces
for the year 1861:
1
Auto. 36-40.
Auto. 68.
3
J.M. Lozano, Mystic and Man, p. 289.
4
Auto. 696.
2
On 26th August, 1861, at 7.00 in the evening while I was at prayer in the church of the
Rosary at La Granja, the Lord granted me the great grace of conserving the sacramental
species and the Blessed Sacrament present always in my breast, day and night. Therefore, I
must always be very recollected and inwardly devout, and I must pray and confront all the
evils of Spain, as the Lord has told me.
To this effect, He brought a number of things to my memory, such as how, without any
merit, talent, or human efforts, He has lifted me up from the lower ranks of society to its
loftiest point. Alongside the kings of earth; and now, alongside the King of Heaven.
“Glorify and bear God in your body” (1 Cor 6: 20).5
It might be considered as the culmination of all the mystical graces that were taken place
in Anthony Claret. The Saint recorded almost literally the experience – except for a few
small changes in punctuation and substitution of the words – in the Autobiography he was
writing, nine months later, around the middle of May 1862.6 Though Claret had some
doubt initially about whether or not he ought to mention this grace in the Autobiography,
he was told by the Blessed Virgin Mary and later by Jesus Himself at Mass not to erase it
and conforming “that He had indeed granted me this grace of remaining within me
sacramentally.”7 The truth of this extraordinary grace may be beyond any doubt, even
though there can be different interpretation on this august grace. It is confirmed by the
reiteration of the Saint himself in his writings and in personal confidences he shared with
his close friends.8 According to Augusto Andrés Ortega, based on the Saint’s balanced and
strongly realistic temperament and the stages of his spiritual life in which the phenomenon
has occurred – a stage where there was no place for illusions or deceptions of this sort – his
statements should be trusted without reserve.9
The Saint himself terms the extraordinary grace of preserving the Eucharistic species in his
heart as “a great grace.” The only other instance, where Claret uses this similar expression
of “great grace” was when writing of the grace of the infused love of enemies that he
received a year before his death.10 The Saint himself understood well that it was the incorruption of the Sacramental species within him and therefore he believed the constant
miraculous presence of Christ in his life from August 26, 1861 until his death.11 Although
such phenomenon are certainly a big question-mark to the law of nature and a
transgression to the present day positivistic principles,12 we are forced to understand it as
an exceptional favour of Christ’s ever loving presence bestowed on the soul of Claret by
the omnipotent God.
3. The Apostolic Significance of the Eucharistic Grace
5
LG, 1861, in AW, p. 323.
Auto. 694.
7
Auto. 700.
8
Close friends such as Fr. Carmelo Sala, a member of his household, two Superiors General of his Congregation Frs. Joseph Xifre and Clement Serrat - as well as P. Juan, the Abbot of Fontfroide, all testified that they heard of it
from him personally. Cf. J. Clotet, Vida Edificante, p. 623; A. Andrés Ortega, Espíritu y Misión, p. 135; PAV,
sess. 48, art. 33; PAV, sess. 34, art. 30. (Jose Maria Mesa in his article on “Una Gracia Grande” (Studia
Claretiana, Vol. II, 1964) gives more testimonies about the sacramental grace of conserving the Eucharistic
species by Claret. pp. 51-55)
9
A. Andrés Ortega, Espíritu y Misión, p. 135.
10
LG, 1869, in AW, p. 338.
11
For nine years and two months, from the 26 th of August 1861 till the 24th of October 1870, it is believed that St.
Anthony Mary Claret carried in his breast, the Sacramental Species, incorrupt, from one Communion to the next.
12
Jose Maria Mesa in his article on “Una Gracia Grande” in Studia Claretiana substantiates with valid arguments
and examples for the sacramental grace of conserving the Eucharistic species by Claret. pp. 59-68.
6
What precisely was the nature of this grace as well as its effect in Anthony Claret? Surely
the Saint was naturally reserved in sharing of his life with others, and moreover speaking
about the spiritual and mystical graces he received from God, unless he was bound to do
so under obedience.13 Concerning this august grace as well, Claret was repugnant in
writing down and revealing with others; but it was the affirmation along with intervention
from Jesus Christ and Virgin Mary left for his posterity the reminiscence of this splendid
grace.14 However these being the case, still the Saint left us enough indications about the
divine intervention in his soul and the profound spiritual effect of it. Claret felt so
conspicuously an inner impulse, both for an intense union with Jesus Christ as well to a
greater drive of an apostolic vigour. He writes so: “I must always be very recollected and
inwardly devout. Furthermore I must pray and confront all the evils of Spain, as the Lord
has told me.”15 The consequence of this grace was then two-fold: an attitude personal with
two correlative features and an apostolic commitment.
In the same breath, just after elaborating the ‘great grace,’ Claret continues writing its
apostolic meaning for his life. It is quite remarkable to note that like St. Teresa of Avila,
Claret did not formulate the conclusions for devoting the rest of his life for exclusively
contemplating the mystery of Jesus Christ, the Blessed Sacrament hidden within his
breast. Rather, in line with his deep vocational identity as the apostolic missionary and
evangelizer of the Father, he draws quite distinct conclusions that, although spending a
great deal more in prayer and recollection, he must above all commit himself with greater
dedication to his apostolic tasks. Such was the intense sense of captivation in the apostolic
identification as the prophet-evangelizer of the Father, in the very mould of Jesus Christ
and the apostles. Everything, his talents and energy, his time and learning, his struggles
and sufferings, his graces and lights, etc., were seen only through the microscope of the
apostolate.
(i). A Grace of Union with Christ his Head: Anthony Claret accepted this mystical grace
as a pure gratuitous gift of God. It was a grace of union with Christ his head, aimed to
serve for his personal sanctification, and also for the benefit of the people of God. At a
time when Claret was experiencing a true ‘dark night of the soul’ in the court, this grace
could be termed as a consequence for his intense desire for the mystical configuration with
Jesus Christ. For Claret, it was like a culmination for a fundamentally Eucharistic-centred
life that has been commenced from his early childhood.16 From another viewpoint, we can
also approach this Eucharistic grace as a special gift of Christ’s loving affirmation as well
as protection granted to His beloved son Anthony Claret, a real consolation for his
disturbed soul that was subjected under perennial calumnies and persecution in those
years. And, it was also “a confirmation on the part of the Lord that He is really present in
the ‘interior chapel’ of Claret’s heart where his soul like Mary is at the feet contemplating
Him.”17
In fact, Claret was conscious that “without any merit, talent, or personal
recommendation,” the Lord has lifted him “from the lowest of the low to the highest post,
Auto. 1. Claret also says his stance very clearly in his very first written Resolutions; “I will never praise myself,
or speak of myself or what I have done… If I am praised, I will be silent…and try to change the subject.” Cf. RR,
1843, no. 10 in AW, p. 150.
14
Claret describes the event in the following words; “I had been thinking of erasing it and was still thinking of it
today (May 16, 1862), but the Blessed Virgin told me not to erase it. Afterward, while I was saying Mass, Jesus
Christ told me that He had indeed granted me this grace of remaining within me sacramentally.” Cf. Auto. 700
15
Auto. 694.
16
J. Álvarez, “La conservación de las especies para nuestra Iglesias” in XX Siglos (Vol. IV, no. 15, 1993), p. 96.
17
C. Njayarkulam, Work and Suffer, p. 142.
13
at the side of the kings of this earth.” What he states thereafter is so significant: “And now
He has put me at the side of the King of Heaven. ‘Glorify God and bear him about in your
body’ (1 Cor. 6: 20).”18 For that reason Claret felt that it was his sacred obligation to live
always in the presence of the Lord, being in intense communion with the Lord both in
moments of prayer and apostolate. It was this profound sense of communion that led
Claret into such a personal and loving conformity with Jesus Christ; ‘to be always very
recollected and inwardly devout.’
According to Andrés Ortega, the extraordinary phenomenon of the miraculous
conservation of the Eucharistic species belongs to the same class along with the cases of
stigmatization, transverberation, etc.; and, it evidently belongs to a state of union, that
union which the mystics call ‘transforming.’19 For Claret, this ‘great grace’ means entering
into the transforming union or the so called ‘mystical marriage with the Lord’.20 J.
Puigdesens, following the norms of the mystical theology calls this phenomenon of
Eucharistic grace as an episode of entering into the ‘spiritual or mystical marriage.’ 21 Even
though there are differences of opinion whether Claret entered the so-called state of
mystical marriage with the very reception of this grace of conservation of the Eucharistic
species or only in the later period, we shall nevertheless find an inherent correlation
between this “great grace” and the transforming union in Claret.
Anthony Mary Claret’s all consuming love for the Blessed Sacrament, which is an
important key to his apostolic spirituality, now transformed him into the suffering and
sacrificial Christ, in a real and even mysteriously perceptible way; thus, sacramentalizing
the very body of our Saint. All the same, there begun in the life of Anthony Claret, an
intense stage of contemplation of the inner mysteries of Jesus Christ as well as an
exceptionally passionate living of the apostolic life. Whatsoever the argument is in saying
that transforming union has its degrees, this ‘great grace’ surpasses all other mystical
phenomenon that occurred in the life of Saint; for in itself, it was certainly the sign and
source of the unifying and configuring grace.22 The inner aspiration of Claret at this stage
of 1862 would give us an enhanced understanding about his passionate yearning for the
transforming or configuring union with the Eucharistic Lord.
My Father, take this poor heart of mine and devour it as I do you, so that I may be
changed totally into you. At the word of consecration the substance of bread and wine are
changed into the substance of your body and blood. Almighty Lord, consecrate me; speak
over me the words that will change me totally into you.23
(ii). An Intense Desire for Prayer: The second consequence or effect of this grace could
be identified as an intense desire for prayer, which may perhaps be understood as prayer of
union and prayer of intercession, an aspect inseparable to the desire for recollection. We
18
Auto. 694.
A. Andrés Ortega, Espíritu y Misión, p. 136.
20
The repeated identification with the Pauline phrases such as “until Christ is formed in you” (Gal 4: 19), “I live,
now not I; but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2: 20), the statement given in the Resolutions that “Jesus is seated in my
heart” (RR, 1864, no. 8), etc. might gives us ample affirmation to our statement for the transforming union of the
Saint with Jesus Christ. At the same time, a few would suspect that the union with the Lord that is called as
‘mystical marriage’ might have probably begun with the vision of Mary handing over the Child Jesus to Claret on
the Christmas night of 1864. Besides, from 1864, Claret’s apostolic zeal was much transformed into a tranquil
state of readiness to accept whatsoever might occur in life.
21
J. Puigdesens, Espíritu del Venerable Claret, p. 361.
22
Once we accept Holy Eucharist as a Sacrament of unity, it gives a valid confirmation to us in accepting this
grace as one of unifying and configuring nature.
23
Auto. 756.
19
know from the beginning of his apostolic missionary life he gave great importance for
prayer; both the prayer of thanksgiving and intercession. As he was immersed in hectic
apostolic activities, he also was seeking the help of the people, lay and religious, for the
success of his mission; also entrusted other people to assist him by prayer. 24 Claret
understood how important it was for an evangelizer and apostolic missionary to spend
much time in prayer imitating the example of Jesus. It was this fervent prayer and the
intense communion with the Eucharistic Lord that formed in him as the source of power
for all his missionary work, especially in the midst of vicious sufferings and persecutions.
(iii). A Revitalized Apostolic Commitment: The final effect as well the most important
effect of this grace for Claret was the ‘action-apostolate,’ a rejuvenated apostolic
commitment. It is particularly noteworthy that the Lord himself gave a meaning to this
phenomenon by assigning it a specific purpose: “to confront all the evils of Spain.” We
may well recall the political, social, economic, cultural, religious and ecclesial
transformation as well as deformation Europe and especially Spain at the time of Anthony
Claret was undergoing. The liberal and secular revolutions along with materialism,
atheism, rationalism, liberal laicism, religious indifferentism, irreligiousness, anti-church
laws, suppression of religious orders, disappearance of the centres of evangelization, the
rapid inroads of Protestantism and socialism in to the minds of the people, etc., were
menacing the society beyond any description.25 All these challenges were vividly in his
mind when he wrote that he has to confront all the evils of Spain as instructed by the
Lord.
Among the abovementioned many ‘evils’ that were troubling Spain and the Church of that
time, God illumined him with a new mystical experience as regards to what those evils
that were threatening Spain and how to confront them as well. It happened on the very
next day, on August 27 1861, after receiving the grace of preserving the Eucharistic species
within him. Claret thus writes:
On August 27, 1861 in the same church, during Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament that
I was conducting after Mass, the Lord let me know the three great evils that were
menacing Spain: (l) Protestantism, or rather, the loss of the Catholic spirit; (2) the
Republic; (3) communism. To combat these three evils, He showed me that three
devotions should be practiced: the Trisagion, the Blessed Sacrament, and the Rosary.26
These explanations from the Autobiography find a confirmation in his letter written to Fr.
Jose Xifre, in which he gave the account of the evils that were threatening Spain and the
antidote to counter them.27 It is noteworthy that both in the Autobiography and in his Lights
and Graces, Claret simply offers a summing up of the evils he had been struggling against
throughout his extensive apostolic career and the remedies to combat them. Nevertheless,
we do not find the Saint indicating any new apostolic plans or detailed perspectives of
how to proceed with.
It is to be particularly remarked that Claret clearly understood that Protestantism as ‘the
loss of the Catholic spirit,’ or better termed it as ‘de-catholicization,’ something that many
of his contemporaries failed to understand at that time. The Saint in his keen sensibility
“identified Protestantism with the revolt of reason against the fundamental principles of
Christian revelation, a revolt incarnated in those rationalist writers and thinkers who were
24
Auto. 263.
La Época Presente in Opúsculos, I, pp. 281-282.
26
Auto. 695; LG, 1861, in AW, pp. 323-324.
27
Letter to Fr. Jose Xifre, August 27, 1861: EC, II, pp. 358-359.
25
denying the Divinity of Jesus Christ.”28 And communism – another great evil – was very
much identified with secularism, atheism, irreligiousness, anti-church attitude and
everything related to that; and we see him vigorously fighting against it all along his
apostolic campaign. Only the notion of the Republic that emerged with clarity in the 1868
Revolution appears with a certain novelty here among the great evils of that time. 29 But in
fact, this was an idea as old as the French Revolution itself, and it was not something that
original in itself for Claret, who was giving enough hinds predicting the downfall of the
Spanish Monarchy through an insurgency.30
Along with these three evils of Protestantism, the Republic and Communism, there were
without doubt, the four arch-demons he had to confront with. It was on 23rd September
1859, in the second vision of the angel of the Apocalypse 31 Claret was made to understand
about the four arch-demons. Again on 24th September 1859 on the Feast of Our Lady of
Mercy, the Lord has given him further understanding about the demons. The first archdemon that would ‘promote the love of sensual pleasure’; the second, ‘the love of gain: the
golden calf’; the third, ‘independence of reason’; and the fourth, ‘independence of will.’32
Claret’s apostolic response to all these evils and snares would still be an all-inclusive
evangelization of the people. It is also achieved with the great additional insight of the
Academy of St. Michael and the Popular Parish Lending Libraries, which were destined to carry
out an in-depth consecratio mundi (‘consecration of the world’) by multiplying evangelizers
and reformers in every sphere, with lay people playing a significant role along with the
priests and religious. It is in this perspective we have to comprehend all his efforts of
forming various agents of evangelization through different organizations, conformities and
apostolic initiatives in Spain.
Probably we can agree with Jesus Alvarez, who says that “Father Claret in numbers 694
and 695 of his Autobiography, was not summing up some possible dangers for the future of
Spain, but was describing what had been happening in Spanish reality since the beginning
of the century.”33 For that very reason, Claret did not intend to draw certain new apostolic
program in combating the evils, but just concentrated in intensifying his evangelical
activity with greater vigour and passion.34 Claret was feeling all the more strengthened and
fortified for the fight, with the all conquering presence of the Lord within him in the
Eucharistic species. He might have really experienced the force within him that is capable
of transforming all those potentialities of evil into the situations of salvation, in placing all
the things into the orbit of the Kingdom, into the very orbit of the salvific love of the
Father. We can say that the presence of the Lord within Claret was effected not merely as
something static but as something dynamic; it was an action, an intense apostolic action.35
28
J. Alvarez, Return To Origins, p. 238.
J. Alvarez, Return To Origins, p. 237.
30
Letter to Fr. Antonio de Galdácano, February 8, 1858: EC, I, pp. 1507-1508.
31
It has to be remembered that Claret had the first vision of the Angel of the Apocalypse on September 2, 1855,
six days after he had officially inaugurated the Institute of his sisters, by receiving the profession of Antonio Paris,
the foundress. Claret writes; “1855. Knowledge… Angel of the Apocalypse on September 2, 1855.” Cf. Resume
of His Life (Doc. VIII) in AW, p. 31. Mother Antonio Paris confirms about the vision in her Autobiography. Cf.
A. Paris Autobiografia, no. 80. [However, Cristobel Fernández in his book gives the date of the first vision of the
Angel of the Apocalypse as on September 1, 1855. Cf. El Beato, Vol. II, p. 561-562.]
32
LG, 1859, in AW, pp. 315-316.
33
J. Alvarez, Return To Origins, p. 237.
34
Though Claret speaks of ‘three evils’ that were threatening Spain (cf. Auto. 695), in another place he reduces
them into two; namely, socialism and Protestantism. (cf. Auto. 717). For Claret if Protestantism was identified
with the revolt of reason against the fundamental principles of Christian revelation, socialism was identified with
the revolt of the masses against the established order of the society. (Cf. J. Alvarez, Return To Origins, p. 238.)
35
J. Álvarez, “La conservación de las especies para nuestra Iglesias” in XX Siglos (Vol. IV, no. 15, 1993), p. 98.
29
Anthony Claret in line with ‘the Plan of restoring the beauty of the Church’ that he was
adequately preoccupied with during his Madrid period, understood the challenge as an
opportunity for ‘new evangelization’ and a ‘new mission’36 in the Church with greater
vision as well as apostolic fervour. This new Claretian evangelization and new mission
gave rise to a need in concentrating all the more to the true fundamentals of the religious
education and true piety; that is based on the Blessed Sacrament and devotion to Virgin
Mary through Rosary, which were the two inseparable poles of the apostolic spirituality of
Anthony Claret. He indeed considered that the Holy Eucharist as the food of our soul and
a pledge of future resurrection,37 just as material food provides energy for the body, having
at the background of his mind the fundamental anthropological perception of the human
being as being made up of body and soul.
With the mystical grace of the Eucharist, Claret was felt well fortified as well as edified to
confront the sins of the world in order to convert them into a new world, into a new
humanity, in the image of Jesus Christ. This is all that signifies as the action in the Holy
Eucharist. The presence of the Eucharistic species was the very symbol of fight: a fight
against the evils of the society, against the sinful old man, against the ignominy of the
humanity, against all kinds of forces of evil present in this material world. 38 And without
doubt, the Holy Eucharist in its very significance is aimed to become the force for victory
of good over evil. Claret firmly believed that the Holy Eucharist not only unites us with
the Lord, but it also augments in us the fire of charity and action; and he tells fervently
that ‘the fire of divine love through the reception of the Sacrament of the Eucharist makes
fire within….’39 The very life and apostolate of Claret bears a factual testimony to this
statement.40
4. The Fusion of ‘Martha and Mary’ in Claret
The last two years of Anthony Claret, unquestionably, was a complete fusion of ‘Martha
and Mary’, of action and contemplation, the high point of intense spiritual life and
mystical union.41 God made him a living ciborium, a human tabernacle, in which the
Lord of the universe reposed day after day, enabling him to fight against the evils of the
society and to renew the humanity into the image of the Creator. Even after receiving such
an extraordinary grace, Anthony Claret all the more pursued with greatest dedication to
persevere and advance in perfection; and that too, through the ‘frequent and well-made
reception of the Sacraments, celebrating and hearing Mass well.’42 Indeed, Claret was a
great Eucharistic mystic and Saint, who adored the Lord of the Eucharist, both in the
Blessed Sacrament and within himself. He was a giant of an apostolic missionary and the
J. Álvarez, “El Padre Claret y el Siglo XIX”, in Studia Claretiana, pp. 58-60.
Ascetical Letter in SSW, pp. 154-155.
38
J. Álvarez, “La conservación de las especies para nuestra Iglesias” in XX Siglos (Vol. IV, no. 15, 1993), pp. 99100.
39
Virgen, Eucaristía y Caridad in EE, pp. 490-491.
40
In this regard we might remember the immense contribution Claret had made through the publication of few
great and popular religious books, Camino Recto y Seguro para Llegar al Cielo, (“The Straight and Sure Path that
leads to Heaven”), Maná del Cristiano, (“Manna of the Christian”) and other Avisos (“Advice”) series, towards
revitalizing the religious and spiritual culture of the people. All the possible means he used in mass
communication such as press and publishing, cultural and social associations such as The Academy of St. Michael
and The Popular Parish Lending Library, together with the formation of the priests and lay people, have indeed
worked phenomenal service in combating with great success the malice of the Spanish society and of the Church
of the nineteenth century. J. Álvarez, in his article “El Padre Claret y el Siglo XIX” in Studia Claretiana deals so
extensively the Claretian response to the manifold ‘evils of Spain.’ Cf. pp. 58-64.
41
A closer reading of the Retreat Resolutions and other spiritual notes would well confirm our suppositions here.
42
RR, 1868, in AW, p. 227.
36
37
grace of the conservation of the Eucharistic species served in him as the true font and
support for all his universal and ecclesial apostolate.
The Eucharistic grace enabled Claret to enter into a profound mystical and transforming
union with the Lord; and at the same time, it turned to become an indescribable source of
energy to confront all the more vigorously the evils affecting the Church as well as the
society. It gave him a firm conviction that he was accompanied by ‘a divine force’ that can
make all things new and to transform the structures of evil into structures of salvation.43
His amalgamation with Jesus Christ was translated into an all-conquering vigour and
vitality for the apostolate of the prophet-servant of the Kingdom of God. For Claret, this
great grace was nothing else, but the astounding surge of apostolic power drawing him to
collaborate in the growth of the whole mystical Body of Christ, the Church. Strengthened
by the Eucharistic Species and energy he re-launched his apostolic mission to confront all
the evils of the society, to make all things new and to save all the people for the
'unfathomable love of God. He was a ‘mystic in action’ and at the same time, an ‘active
humanist in pure contemplation’. It is really hard to find such a harmonious fusion of
action and contemplation in the many saints and holy persons of the Church.
5. Conclusion
The Devotion to the Eucharist and the centrality of Jesus Christ, undoubtedly, was an
essential characteristic of the spirituality of Anthony Claret’s life. If it was a passionate
and loving devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and to the Holy Eucharist that was
manifested in Claret’s early life, it was the mystical and transforming union with
Eucharistic Lord that was marked out in his later life. With such a tangible experience of
the Eucharistic Lord, certainly Claret turned out to be a true servant and minister of the
Holy Eucharist. In the history of the Church it is not that easy to find many Saints like
Claret who dedicated so fully to the apostolic activities, and at the same time dedicating
fully to the perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Holy Eucharist and the
Eucharistic Lord was one dimension that totally engulfed the very apostolic life of
Anthony Mary Claret. In short, Claret fully harmonized the Eucharistic dimension in to
his apostolic missionary life; and they remained so much as inseparable facets of the one
and the single mystical experience in our Saint, at the same time mutually substantiating
each other.
=====================================
Abbreviations
Auto. : Autobiography of Saint Anthony Mary Claret
AW : Works of Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Volume II: Autobiographical Writings
SSW : Works of Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Vol. III: Selected Spiritual Writings
RR
: Retreat Resolutions of Saint Anthony Mary Claret
SN
: Spiritual Notes of Saint Anthony Mary Claret
LG
: Lights and Graces of Saint Anthony Mary Claret
EC
: Epistolario de San Antonio María Claret
EE
: San Antonio María Claret: Escritos Espirituales
Opúsculos, I : Colección de Opúsculos por el Excmo. é Ilmo. Sr. D. Antonio Maria Claret, Vol. I.
43
J. Álvarez, Return To Origins, p. 255.
C. Fernández, El Beato, Vol. I
: Cristóbal Fernández, R. P., El Beato Padre Antonio
Maria Claret, Vol. I
J. Alvarez, Return To Origins
: Jesús Alvarez Gómez, Claretian Missionaries: Return To
Origins, Vol. I
J. Puigdesens, Espíritu del Venerable Claret : José Puigdesens, in Espíritu del Venerable P.
Antonio Maria Claret.
A.A. Ortega, Espíritu y Misión
: Augusto Andrés Ortega, Espíritu y Misión del Padre
Claret
J. Clotet, Vida Edificante
: Jaime Clotet, Vida Edificante del Padre Claret, Misionero
y Fundador.
C. Njayarkulam, Work and Suffer : Cyriac Njayarkulam, Work and Suffer for Jesus Christ
J.M. Lozano, Mystic and Man
: Juan Maria Lozano, Mystic and Man of Action
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