Daily Gospel Reflection
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September 9, 2025
Jesus departed to the mountain to pray,
and he spent the night in prayer to God.
When day came, he called his disciples to himself,
and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named Apostles:
Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew,
James, John, Philip, Bartholomew,
Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus,
Simon who was called a Zealot,
and Judas the son of James,
and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
And he came down with them and stood on a stretch of level ground.
A great crowd of his disciples and a large number of the people
from all Judea and Jerusalem
and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon
came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases;
and even those who were tormented by unclean spirits were cured.
Everyone in the crowd sought to touch him
because power came forth from him and healed them all.
In the chapters leading up to today’s gospel, Jesus faced rejection and criticism—even and especially in his hometown. With the Apostles getting a front-row seat to this, they may have wondered what they were getting themselves into when Jesus chose them to follow him and help spread God’s message. Especially after Jesus had foreshadowed his own suffering and death, the work ahead of them was undoubtedly daunting. But what was it that Jesus saw in them that made each one of the Apostles fit for the role?
Today is the feast day of St. Peter Claver, a Spaniard who was called by God to go to Colombia and spend his life serving enslaved Africans brought to Cartagena in the 17th century. He boarded ships as they docked and tended to the passengers, Africans who had been kidnapped from their homes and transported to South America to be sold into slavery. He ministered to the enslaved people, providing for their basic needs, and challenged wealthy merchants who profited from slavery.
We can imagine that St. Peter Claver’s work was unpopular and daunting since slavery was legitimized in those times. It’s safe to say he probably wondered a time or two what he had gotten himself into. However, God saw something in him that made him fit for the role and sustained him in his work.
What does God see in us? What is God calling us to do that is against the grain, out of the norm, or intimidating for us to undertake? Today, let us pray for the grace and clarity to know God’s will, and for the courage and strength to do it.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, you spent a night in prayer before you announced your disciples and the beginning of our Church. The Twelve placed their faith, hope and trust in both God and man. May I join this group in all its fullness: faith in Jesus Christ, hope in His mercy and trust in His provident care. I ask this through Christ Our Lord. Amen.
Saint of the Day
St. Peter Claver is known for tirelessly caring for victims of the slave trade.
He was born 1581 in Catalonia, Spain, and was a bright student. After graduating from university with honors, he followed a call to the priesthood, entered the Jesuit order, and was sent to care for people in the New World. He landed in Cartagena, Colombia, and was ordained a priest there in 1615.
When he arrived, the slave trade had been established for nearly 100 years; Cartagena was a port that received many slaves captured from Congo and Angola. The conditions under which slaves were transported to the New World were horrific—a third died on the voyage. In spite of all this, some 10,000 slaves entered the Americas through Cartagena every year.
Peter Claver attached himself to work with a priest who was caring for the physical and spiritual needs of those enslaved. Though Peter was shy and introverted, he was methodical and organized, and he gathered people to help him meet slave ships when they arrived in port.
When the enslaved disembarked, they were herded into a confined space for sorting. They had spent weeks locked in the ship’s hold and suffered greatly from inhuman treatment and the easy spread of illness. Peter and his band of helpers would carry medicine, food, bread, lemons, tobacco, and anything else they could get their hands on to be of aid.
“We must speak to them with our hands, before we try to speak to them with our lips,” Peter Claver said. He called himself the “slave of the slaves forever.”
He found interpreters who knew different African native languages and dialects and taught the enslaved about the Christian faith and the love of God. He tried to restore in them a sense of their human dignity, even though they had been degraded by their captors. He visited plantations to advocate for better conditions and even worked for the conversion of the slave owners. He served some 300,000 slaves in 40 years of service.
Peter Claver also would visit hospitals in Cartagena to care for the sick and poor there, and paid special attention to the imprisoned. It is said that no one faced the death penalty in Cartagena without Peter Claver present to give him consolation.
He was a sought-after confessor and would sometimes spend 15 hours a day hearing confessions. He would travel through the countryside to preach missions at parishes but would make a point of staying in the slaves’ quarters, not in the comfortable plantation homes. He preached in town squares, and his words were accompanied by the gifts of miracles and prophecy.
In 1650 he fell ill with a plague that was ravaging the region. He barely survived and spent the last few years of his life in pain. Trembling shook his body so much that he often could not even celebrate Mass. He was confined to his room and was often neglected or forgotten in the confusion of the crisis of the epidemic.
He died on this date in 1654, and his relics rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica. The image of liberated chains stands as a symbol for St. Peter Claver on the Eck Hall of Law. He is the patron saint of African-Americans and those who work for interracial justice.
St. Peter Claver, patron saint of African-Americans, you cared for slaves as they arrived from Africa—pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of St. Peter Claver is available for use under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Last accessed April 3, 2025 on Wikimedia Commons.
