Intense love for God and people was the force that drove St Anthony Mary Claret through out his life. 'Fire' was the word he used to describe the love that launched him on an endless sea of projects, and that gave him the sustaining power to keep them all going. He draws a pen-picture of his ideal: 'A Son of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a man on fire with love, who ... strives by all means possible to set the whole world on fire with God's love.'

His desire to be a Priest was side-tracked at an early age, when he began to be an apprentice in his father's textile factory.

At eighteen he set out for Barcelona to learn the latest techniques in the textile business. He learned so fast and gained such a reputation as an expert in textile matters that he was offered the position as head of the company.

After working as a parish Priest, Fr Claret realised that God was calling him to a more extensive ministry. He went to Rome to investigate this possibility and decided to join the Jesuits. In the Jesuit Noviciate a mysterious illness forced Fr Claret to return to Spain, where he began to preach missions throughout his diocese - with such success that he was invited to other dioceses.

Since Fr Claret dared to take the Gospel seriously, and to live and preach it fearlessly, he made enemies. The Gospel taught him to respect every person - even the poor, the slaves and the common workers - and to treat them all as persons redeemed and loved by God. This did not sit well with those who were making profit at the expense of others' misery. So his enemies unleashed attacks against him, not only verbally in the press but also physically. However, the fire of love that drove Claret was not dampened by such attacks, but rather fanned to a greater intensity.

Fr Claret was inspired to expand his ministry in such a way that he could reach the whole world till the end of time. So he gathered in Vic a group of five zealous young priests who shared his own vision and fire, and on July 16th, 1849 founded the Congregation of Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, later known as 'Claretian Missionaries.'

From the very beginning Claret had in mind a community of enthusiastic men who would live the kind of life that Jesus Christ and the Apostles lived, and who would spread the fire of the Gospel as they did. The Claretians took up his work. This new Congregation was hardly a month old when God set His seal on it by calling the Founder to be the Archbishop of Cuba.

The diocese of Cuba had been without a bishop for fourteen years and badly needed the revitalisation that the Archbishop Claret brought to it. He reformed the clergy, created new parishes and sent missionaries to preach continually throughout the diocese. He personally visited every parish in the diocese four times. He founded a community of teaching Sisters, set up credit unions, and established a trade school for poor youths. He confirmed over 300,000 persons and legalised over 10,000 marriages. He found time for his ministry of writing and distributing vast quantities of free books and pamphlets.

It was Cuba, in the town of Holguin, that one of the most dramatic attempts on Archbishop Claret's life was to take place. It was on the evening of February 10, 1856 when he had just left church after preaching on the Blessed Virgin Mary. He was passing through a crowd of well-wishers when a man from the crowd lunged at him with a razor. Fortunately, the Archbishop was holding a handkerchief over his mouth as a precaution against the cool night air, so the razor missed his throat, but gashed his left cheek and right arm. As a sign of God's care, the cheek wound, which had cut the salivary glands, was remarkably healed, to the astonishment of the doctors. The wound on the arm healed to form an image of Our Lady of Sorrows, which lasted about two years.

But despite these obstacles, Archbishop Claret managed to accomplish much. He uplifted the morals of the once frivolous court. He rejuvenated the big charity hospital on Montserrat in Madrid. The sick poor flocked to its doors, and its staff was upset by Claret's policy of giving: no one was to be turned away without alms. To the complaints that some people were taking advantage of him by coming back, he responded: 'If they come back, it is because what they received the first time wasn't enough.' Claret even sold his pectoral cross to help the poor.

Archbishop Claret took advantage of his travels with the royal family to conduct an on-going missionary campaign throughout Spain. Also, he re-established public libraries, wrote a good number of books and pamphlets, founded the Academy of St Michael, and started a seminary at the Escorial. One of his most far reaching services to the Church was his co-operation with the Papal Nuncio in selecting new Bishops. And through all this work, he kept stoking the fires of his own Claretian Congregation, rewriting its Constitutions, presiding over its first Chapter, and winning approval for it from the Holy See.

He retired to France to live with his Missionaries but the Spanish revolutionary government, learning of his return, sought his extradition and he was forced, despite his critical condition, to flee the advancing troops and seek refuge in the Cistercian Monastery of Fontfroide. There, surrounded by his beloved Missionaries and the Cistercian Monks, he died a most holy and edifying death on October 24, 1870. He was canonised by Pope Pius XII on May 7 1950.

St Anthony Claret had long realised that the gospel is not lived out in a detached hereafter but in the here and now and by men and women, not as they ought to be, but as they are in all their imperfections and in all the varied circumstances of their daily lives. Hence, St Anthony Claret lived a life very much immersed in this world - Missionary, Communicator, Reformer, Author, Preacher, Founder, Champion of the Poor - A MAN ON FIRE WITH LOVE.