Anthony Mary Claret was born Antoni Maria Claret i Clarà on 23 December 1807 in Sallent, near Barcelona, the fifth of eleven children of Juan and Josefa Claret. His father was a wool manufacturer, and the boy received a deeply Christian upbringing marked by devotion to the Virgin Mary and the Eucharist. He made pilgrimages to the nearby shrine of Our Lady of Fussimanya. At twelve he became a weaver; at eighteen he went to Barcelona to master the Jacquard loom, studying Latin, French, and engraving in his spare time. Feeling called away from worldly success, he left Barcelona, entered the seminary of Vic in 1829, and was ordained priest on 13 June 1835, the feast of Saint Anthony of Padua.
Eager for the missions, he went to Rome and briefly entered the Jesuit novitiate, but illness forced his return to Spain. For seven years he perfected the art of preaching throughout Catalonia and the Canary Islands, traveling always on foot like a pilgrim with Bible and breviary, living an austere life and gaining a reputation as a wonder-worker. On 16 July 1849, feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, he founded the Congregation of the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary—the Claretians—consecrated to the Virgin. Many of its members later suffered martyrdom in the Spanish Civil War.
Appointed Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, he was consecrated at Vic in October 1850 and arrived in 1851 to a diocese long without a shepherd: few and unprepared clergy, a ruined seminary, neglected churches. He held a diocesan synod, required spiritual exercises for priests, recalled expelled religious, thrice visited the entire territory, validated thousands of marriages, founded hospitals and schools, trade schools for the poor, and credit unions. With the Venerable María Antonia París he founded in 1855 the Religious of Mary Immaculate, the Claretian Missionary Sisters. His defense of the poor and reform of morals stirred enemies; at Holguín an assassin stabbed his cheek. He obtained commutation of the attacker's death sentence.
In 1857 Queen Isabella II recalled him to Madrid as her confessor. He resigned the Cuban see, lived frugally, served as rector of the Escorial, and continued missions and the distribution of books. When revolution exiled the queen in 1868, he accompanied her to Paris, then went to Rome for the First Vatican Council, where he defended papal infallibility. Harassed by enemies and failing in health, he withdrew to the Cistercian abbey of Fontfroide near Narbonne, France, and died there on 24 October 1870. His remains were later brought to Vic; his heart was found incorrupt. Beatified in 1934 and canonized by Pope Pius XII on 7 May 1950, he is remembered as a modest yet commanding apostle whose soft light was devotion to the Mother of God.
May Saint Anthony Mary Claret obtain for us a share in his burning charity, that we too may labor for God's glory and the salvation of souls.
