Born in Spain in 1807, Anthony was the fifth of eleven children born to Juan and Josepha and grew up in a family that had a special devotion to Our Lady, often making pilgrimages to a nearby shrine. 

At the age of twenty he started his working life as a weaver but, on his own time, studied Latin and printing, skills which would later serve him and the rest of us very well. 

By the time he was twenty-two, Anthony felt called to religious life and, in 1829, entered the diocesan seminary, and was ordained in 1835 on the Feast Day of St. Anthony of Padua on June 13th. 

He’d wanted to become a missionary so he tried to become a Jesuit priest but poor health got in the way so Anthony turned to preaching and giving missions across Spain and, for a time, in the Canary Islands. 

Along the way he treated the sick, worked to help the poor, and drew huge crowds everywhere he went. 

In 1849 he formed The Missionary Sons of The Immaculate Heart, The Claretians, and also founded a great religious library now known as “Libreria Claret”. 

Anthony was a prolific writer, offering over two hundred books while founding a Catholic publishing house. 

In 1850 he was made Archbishop of Santiago, Cuba. There he brought reform, and new life to a fading Church, and built schools, hospitals, and libraries but, against his 

wishes, he was called back to Spain to serve as Chaplin for Queen Isabella and then, forced into exile with her in Paris in 1868 during the revolution. 

Anthony was an important part of the first Vatican Council where he was an articulate and passionate defender of the Doctrine of Infallibility. 

He died on this day in 1870.

St. Anthony Mary Claret, please pray for us.