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Clare was the noble and lofty tree bringing
forth
THE SWEET FRUIT OF FAITH
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As Clare of Assisi
entered her teen years, her thoughts and those of her family quite
naturally turned to the future.
Her relatives wanted her to marry well.
Yet Clare consistently refused the
proposals they arranged.
Religious life?
There were Benedictine monasteries in the
area, but Clare was not drawn to them.
Neither was she attracted to one of the
small groups of pious women, forerunners of active religious Sisters,
who were banding together to live a communal life dedicated to prayer
and good works.
What then?
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PART 2
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Faith is choosing
to stand with the Lord so as to live with Him.
Pope
Benedict XVI, Porta Fidei,
10
The turning point came when
Clare heard the future St. Francis preach the Lenten mission at
Jesus asks
for a radical choice: to gain the Kingdom, one must give everything.
Catechism #546
The delicate 18-year-old who fled
home on the night of Palm Sunday 1212, set off without hesitation on the
adventure of a new experience, believing in the Gospel as Francis showed
her, and in nothing else.
This is how Saint Pope John Paul II described St. Clare’s response to the Gospel
summons:
Repent,
and BELIEVE! With
swift pace, light step and unstumbling feet, she made
her way to the little chapel of St. Mary of the Angels to begin her
religious life.
This,
then, is the marvelous yet demanding task awaiting all Christians at every
moment:
to grow always in the knowledge of the richness of Baptism and
of faith,
as well as to live it more fully.
Saint
Pope John Paul II,
Christifideles Laici, 58
3rd
Letter to Agnes of
Leaving all things
for
Christ, she found all things
in
Christ.
Repent, and BELIEVE! St. Clare’s conversion, unlike that of St. Francis, was not a turning to God after a frivolous, worldly life. It was, rather, a turning from what was good to something immensely better. As Pope Benedict XVI so beautifully wrote: How could one fail to hold up Clare, like Francis, to the youth of today? Her story, like that of Francis, is an invitation to reflect on the meaning of life and to seek the secret of true joy in God. It is concrete proof that those who do the Lord’s will and trust in Him alone lose nothing; on the contrary they find the true treasure that can give meaning to all things. Letter for the 8th Centenary of St. Clare’s Religious Consecration