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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
Assisi’s
cathedral.
His burning words witnessed to the depth of his
love for Christ and the totality of his
commitment to live
according
to the form of the holy Gospel.
Clare, accompanied by a trusted
companion, met secretly with Francis and his companion, Brother Philip.
Like the rich young man in the Gospel,
she asked:
What must I do?
Unlike the rich young man, Clare
did not turn away sad.
Inflamed with love for the poor Christ,
she secretly sold her paternal inheritance and gave the proceeds to the
poor.
And then she made her great leap of faith.
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 Blessed 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.
St. John Paul II,
Christifideles Laici, 58
Clare’s first weeks in
God’s service were marked by misunderstanding, opposition and even
violence on the part of some of her relatives.
Yet
by humility, the virtue of
faith and the strong arms of poverty, (she) took hold of the incomparable
treasure hidden in the field of the world and the human heart.
3rd
Letter to Agnes of
Prague
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
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