Daily Reflection: Thursday, September 9

Memorial of St. Peter Claver

Let the peace of Christ control your hearts….  (Col 3:15) 

First of all, really give up control.  Christ won’t force us; we have to let him.  Then what happens when the peace of Christ, actually Christ himself, controls our hearts?  More than we imagine.

 St. Peter Claver, the awesome Jesuit saint we celebrate today, shows an example of a heart controlled by the peace of Christ.  For forty years or more he ministered to African slaves arriving in Cartagena (Columbia).  He was a slave to slaves as he cared for their brutalized bodies and souls.

John Frambes, ofm