St Clare

[cappie]

[i]"I have come to rate all as loss in the light of the surpassing knowledge of my Lord Jesus Christ."[/i]

St Clare of Assisi was born into a wealthy family on Psalm Sunday of 1212. At the age of 18, she ran away from her wealthy home and received the religious habit of St Francis. She then embraced a life of poverty.

The words of the apostle Paul to the Philippians explain to us the meaning of Clare's gesture. Clare was a holy woman who saw all else as rubbish because she saw Christ Jesus as her wealth. By her life of discipline, holiness and poverty, Clare continues to teach the Church that Christ must be our wealth. And so, while some people think the best way to live is to love and seek wealth with all their heart, with all their mind, and with all their strength, Clare lived out the words of the letter to the Philippians. Recognizing the surpassing value of the knowledge of Christ, she loved him with all her mind, with all her heart, and with all her strength. Clare fell in love with Christ. And when two people fall in love, they not only fall into each other's arms, they get lost in each other. St. Clare was willing to lose herself in Christ. She gave her whole life to Christ, the one she saw as her groom. Clare clung to Christ tightly because , as she said of him, Christ's love sets our own love on fire.

St. Clare was drunk. She was drunk with love. She was drunk with the love of Christ. How can we fail to take note of this drunkenness of Clare when we read a letter she wrote to another holy women, Blessed Agnes of Prague. When two people fall in love, they not only want to talk to each other, they want to talk to others about each other. And that was what Clare did in that letter of Blessed Agnes of Prague. Clare spoke the language of lovers when she spoke of Christ:
Happy indeed is she who is granted a place at the divine banquet, for she may cling with her inmost heart to him whose beauty eternally awes the blessed hosts of heaven; to him whose love inflames our love, whose contemplation refreshes, whose generosity satisfies, whose gentleness delights, whose memory shines sweetly as dawn; to him whose fragrance revives the dead, and whose glorious vision will bless all the citizens of that heavenly Jerusalem. For he is the splendor of eternal glory, the brightness of the eternal light, and the mirror without cloud.
St Clare advised Blessed Agnes of Prague to look to Jesus as mirror. It is when one looks into that mirror that Christ is that one is able to see herself. As one looks into this mirror, one see the poverty of Christ in the manger, his humility and suffering on the cross.

Behold the many labors and sufferings he endured to redeem the human race. Then, in the depths of this very mirror, ponder his unspeakable love which caused him to suffer on the wood of the cross and to endure the most shameful kind of death.

It is when we contemplate Christ on the cross that his love inflames our love. As St Clare puts it, the unspeakable love of Christ on the cross, the love of Christ, inflames our hearts. Look at Christ on the cross, poor, obedient, deprived of pleasure. His poverty and nakedness on the cross counsels us to embrace the detachment of poverty; his obedience unto death counsels us to submit to God's will in obedience; his suffering and pain on the cross counsel us to give up all unchaste pleasure by embracing the vow of chastity. When this is done, then, like St Clare, the words of Paul's letter to the Philippians become true in our lives:
[i]I have come to rate all as loss in the light of the surpassing knowledge of my Lord Jesus Christ. For his sake I have accepted the loss of everything, and I see everything as rubbish so that Christ may be my wealth. [/i]

Look at Christ on the cross, and you will get a greater inspiration to embrace the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience, you will share in his sufferings, and you will be formed into the pattern of his death.

[The Bus Station]

Thanks Father it's my sister's feast day.

[Guest Perpetualove]

Gorgeous post! Thanks.