Poor Clare Nuns coming
to Arizona
Part Two of Three
St. Clare's Vision
To understand the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration who are coming
to our diocese in May, we must understand their foundress St.
Clare of Assisi, the first woman to write a Rule of Religious
Life.
Most people know that St. Clare was closely associated with St.
Francis of Assisi in a great revitalization of the Christian life
in the 13th century. To be sure, Clare and her Sisters fulfilled
a vital role in the rapid and authentic proliferation of the Franciscan
charism. Less well known are the principles of faith that made
up the monastic vision of Clare. Three of these deserve particular
attention:
- An intense spousal love for Christ the Bridegroom,
- A spontaneous joy in being Christ's Bride,
- A radical commitment to the Poor Christ expressed in poverty
of spirit and body.
An intense spousal love for Christ the Bridegroom
Clare considered herself and each Sister to be "spouse and
mother and sister of my Lord Jesus Christ." In her four famous
letters to Blessed Agnes of Prague, the frequent repetition of
these relational terms reveals Clare's deep sense of her identity
and mission. Clare's conviction about this intimate relationship
with Jesus was reinforced by Francis who wrote in his First Letter
to the Faithful that all the baptized are "spouses when the
faithful soul is joined by the Holy Spirit to our Lord Jesus Christ.
We are brothers and sisters to Him when we do the will of the
Father who is in heaven. We are mothers when we carry Him in our
heart and body through a divine love and a pure and sincere conscience
and give birth to Him through a holy activity that must shine
as an example before others."
Like Francis, Clare's whole sense of self and her dynamic spirituality
were bound up with her relationship with Jesus. This is how she
saw the identity of all her spiritual daughters. So, in her second
letter to Agnes, Clare addresses the young Abbess in Prague as
"the daughter of the King of kings, Handmaid of the Lord
of lords, most worthy spouse of Jesus Christ."
A spontaneous joy in being Christ's Bride
Clare's vision of religious life, indeed of the lives of all followers
of Christ, was firmly grounded in reality. She knew from personal
experience the cost of Christian discipleship. Her decision to
follow the guidance of Francis and thus to embrace the Poor and
Humble Christ was met with fierce resistance by her family. But
Clare was convinced that the unjust structures of Italian society
at that time would not and should not last. Families of nobility,
like her own, had no future if they continued to cling to power
and privilege, while ignoring the gnawing poverty of vast sectors
of the population, and while a rising merchant class was gaining
wealth and influence.
With incredible courage for a person in her teens, Clare ran away
from her parents' noble palace and ran towards her beloved Divine
Spouse. Her own father never forgave Clare for this decision;
to her great sorrow, he refused ever to reconcile with his daughter.
But the cost of embracing Christ, far from embittering Clare,
led her to spiritual joys that this material world could never
provide. From her own experience and relying on the witness of
Francis, she became convinced that the only way to joy is to embrace
Christ, the Poor One, whose poverty makes us rich in the riches
that last forever. In her first letter to Agnes of Prague, Clare
writes: "O blessed poverty that provides eternal riches to
those who love and embrace it! O holy poverty, God promises the
kingdom of heaven and, of course, gives eternal glory and a happy
life to those who possess and desire it! …It is indeed a
great and praiseworthy exchange to give up the temporal for the
eternal, to merit the heavenly rather than the earthly, to receive
a hundredfold instead of one, to have a happy, everlasting life."
Joy in Christ, insists Clare, requires spiritual discipline, especially
the practice of daily prayer where, in addition to praising God,
we also bring the hurts that tempt us to anger and the temptations
that could turn us away from purity of heart. Joy is a gift that
requires choosing again and again to focus on the face of the
Divine Spouse and upon His gifts that begin now and last forever.
A radical poverty of spirit and body
All that Clare did flowed from her close bond of affection and
grace with Christ. This was especially true of her practice of
poverty. She chose poverty because in Christ she found a treasure
that was worth selling everything for. Poverty was for Clare a
matter of love. The One she loved emptied Himself out of love
for us, even to the point of death on a Cross.
Clare's choice for poverty was also inspired by apostolic charity.
Unlike many established monasteries of her day which insured their
nuns a standard of living higher than most of the laity, Clare
deliberately chose a sparing way of life in order to live in solidarity
with the poor. Her inspiration came from Jesus' words (Mt 19:21):
"If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give
to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." That
is what Francis had done. Clare gladly did the same. And that
is what persons are still doing in 2005 when they answer Christ's
call to be a Poor Clare. Y
See next issue for part
three in this series.
