The
Incarnate Son of God is the infinite Beauty
which alone can fully satisfy the human heart.
- Pope St. John Paul
II
It is difficult to put into words just what Clare
beheld as she contemplated her Lord and Love, Jesus Christ.
A key to unlocking her secret may be found
in “The Praises of God Most High” composed by her spiritual father and
mentor, St. Francis of Assisi .
It is significant that amid these sublimely
simple expressions of awe and wonder, the Little Poor Man twice repeats:
You are
BEAUTY!
This
Beauty,
HIS BEAUTY,
the sun and the moon, and all the blessed hosts of
heaven unceasingly admire,
the Seraphic
Mother wrote to her beloved daughter,
the future St. Agnes of Prague .
There
is another aspect of this mystery of divine beauty to which St. Clare would
direct our attention:
Your Spouse, though more beautiful than the sons
of men, became for your salvation, the lowest of men.
Indeed, it is precisely on the Cross
that Jesus
fully reveals the beauty and power of God’s love.
Pope St. John Paul II
This beauty is revealed to the humble, the
prayerful and the penitent as the truest beauty that exists -- the infinite,
ineffable, incomparable beauty of the God who is Love.
Beauty
is in the eye of the beholder.
Yet, what happens when the “beholder” gazes
upon Him who is the source and summit of all beauty? St. Clare would say
that in beholding
the Beautiful One
who is
Jesus,
one becomes beautiful.
But, this human beholding of divine beauty
requires effort, surrender, self-renunciation.
Thus Clare insists that we must
look into
the
Mirror
which is Christ
every day,
so that we
may adorn (ourselves) within and without with the flowers and garments of
all the virtues.
If
we should grow weary or fretful or fearful, the Seraphic Mother would repeat
to us the words of St. Augustine :
Let not the
weakness of the flesh distract your eyes from the splendor of His beauty.
In
the countenance of Jesus, the
image of God
and
the
reflection of the Father’s glory,
we
glimpse the depths of an eternal and infinite love which is at the very root
of our being.
Pope St.
John Paul II
Having glimpsed this love, having been
seized by the beauty of the One whom she beheld, St. Clare surrendered to
the transforming action of His grace, and became, like every holy soul, a
reflection of the Divine Beauty.
Through her intercession may
the Most
Holy Trinity bless the sons and daughters
whom He has
called
to behold and
to praise the greatness of His love,
His
merciful goodness and His BEAUTY.
Amen!
You are BEAUTY,
O Jesus, whom Clare beheld as a
humble Infant, laid in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes, enthroned on
the lap of His Virgin Mother.
You are BEAUTY,
O Jesus, whom she considered in
the mysteries of the hidden life, in the obscurity of Nazareth , amid the
toils and labors of a carpenter’s son.
You are BEAUTY,
O Jesus, whose ministry and
miracles Clare followed in prayer, whose mystery she embraced in her long
hours of pondering and praying over the Gospels.
