Claret always looked at the apostolic times with a holy nostalgia, “What shall I say of St. James, St. John, and the other Apostles? With great concern and zeal they rushed from one kingdom to another, preaching zealously and without fear of human respect, considering that God must be obeyed rather than men!….Scourging could not intimidate them into giving up their preaching; on the contrary, they counted themselves fortunate to be able to suffer something for the sake of Jesus Christ” (Auto.223).
In fact we know little about the majority of the apostles, where they went, what they were doing and how they died; the historical information about Peter, Paul and James were enough for Claret and from there and from his own experience, he was painting the complete view-point of conquering the world for the cause of Jesus. When he writes these lines (1862), his dedication to the ministry was at risk of various murder attempts and some of them left scars throughout his life. But he accepted them not as defeat, but as a trophy. And he relates preaching with persecution.
When writing to a friend towards the end of his life, Claret said, “It seems to me that I have fulfilled my mission. I have preached the Law of God in Paris and Rome; in Paris, as the capital of the world and in Rome, the capital of Catholicism. I have done it through both preaching and writing” (EC, II, p. 1423).
Our time is more difficult than that of Claret. Information technologies and anti-Christian publications have an enormous power and certain universities are channels for thinking opposed to the cause of God. Given this, as convinced believers, we can´t sit idly by and do nothing. We need among us experts in communication media; but we lack above all many enthusiastic persons for the Gospel of Jesus!