SAINT CLARE
St. Clare, born at Assisi in Umbria, was the first of the holy virgins whom St. Francis, consecrating to God, bound to Christlike poverty. On a visit to St. Francis, she expressed to him her desire to become a Spouse of Christ. To St. Francis had been given a little chapel called the Portiuncula by the Benedictine abbot of Monte Subasio. St. Francis gave to Clare the rule of St. Benedict to follow, as he desired to graft his new foundation on to the old Order, so as to give it a canonical basis, one already recognized by Holy Church. St. Francis determined that Clare should not imitate the rich convents of Benedictines then in Umbria, but should go back to the early traditions of Benedictine poverty; thus it was that Pope Gregory IX was able to write to them before they had a rule of their own: “Now you are worthy daughters of the blessed Benedict.”
Her sister Agnes and other women soon joined her; they walked barefooted, slept on the ground, observed perpetual abstinence, and made poverty the basis of their lives. St. Clare teaches us to have great devotion to the Holy Eucharist. In the midst of her extreme poverty she caused the Blessed Sacrament to be kept in a silver case placed in an ivory pyx. One day when the Saracens attacked the Convent of San Damiano, Clare herself held up the pyx containing the Blessed Sacrament like a shield between the nuns and the fury of the infidels. The enemy turned and fled. St. Clare passed to her Heavenly reward, August 11, 1253, and was canonized by Pope Alexander IV two years later.
St. Clare mourning St. Francis
St. Clare – Dom Gueranger, Liturgical Year
The same year, before any project of collecting son, Dominic founded the first settlement of the Sisters of her Order, the companion for the sky the father of Preachers received the Crucifix of San Damiano its mission with these words: “Go, Francis, and repair my house which is falling apart. ” And the new patriarch inaugurated its work by preparing, like Dominique, her future daughters sacred asylum where their immolation get all through the powerful Order he had founded. St. Mary of the Portiuncula, the cradle of Mineworkers, was not until San Damiano House of Poor Ladies, hold the thought of the seraph of Assisi. And a second time this month, the eternal Wisdom does she show us that any fruit of salvation, it seems to come from the word or action, shall first of silent contemplation.
Claire was similar to Francis himself using whose motherhood the Lord begat this multitude of heroic virgin, illustrious penitents, the Seraphic Order soon had all latitudes, coming to him more humble circumstances as the steps of the throne.
In the new knights of Christ, Poverty, that the father had chosen for Juvenile Dame, was also the sovereign of that which God had given him to emulate and daughter. Next to the last ends the God-man humiliated and stripped for us, yet itself already felt queen with her sisters in the kingdom of heaven. In the nest of his destitution, she repeated with love, what gem wife never would equal compliance with God without any although the poorest mothers clasped tiny vile nappies close crib! So live it fearlessly defend, against the highest interventions, this privilege of absolute poverty whose application had startles the great Pope Innocent III, the final confirmation, obtained the day before the holy beyond death, appeared as the coveted reward of forty years of prayers and sufferings for the Church of God.
The noble daughter of Assisi had justified the prophecy that sixty years earlier, announced to his pious mother hortulana as to enlighten the world; do well was the choice of name he was given at birth. “Oh! As powerful was this clarity of virgin cries in the Bull of canonization the Supreme Pontiff! As were his penetrating rays! She was hiding in the depths of the cloister, and its brilliance, piercing all, filled the house of God “. His poor lonely it never left, only the name of Claire seemed to carry everywhere with grace light and fertilized off to God and his holy father Francis cities.
Wide as the world, which multiplied the admirable tradition of her virginity, her mother’s heart was full of ineffable tenderness for these girls she had ever seen. To those who believe that austerity embraced God withers the soul include these lines of his correspondence with the Blessed Agnes of Bohemia. I Ottocar daughter of Agnes repudiated for the imperial bure and renewed engagement in Prague located in Saint-Damien, “O my Mother and daughter told him our holy, if I have not written as often as you would have wished my soul and yours, do not be at all surprised: as you loved your mother’s womb, and I treasure you; but few messengers great perils roads. Now that the opportunity is presented to me, my joy is full, and I conjouis with you in the joy of the Holy Spirit.
As the first Agnes joins the Immaculate Lamb, and therefore is it given you, O fortunate, enjoy this union astonishment of heaven with Him whose desire delights every soul, whose goodness is all sweetness, whose vision is the blessed him the light of eternal light, the mirror without spot! Look in the mirror, O Queen, O Bride! Constantly at her reflection, raise your charms; outside, inside, adorn yourself virtues, adorn the property’s daughter and the wife of the Supreme King: O beloved, her eyes on the mirror, what delights you will be given to enjoy in God’s grace ! … However, remember your poor mother, and know that for me I have etched forever in your memory blessed my heart “.
Franciscan family was not only to benefit from a charity that stretched all the noble interests of this world. Assisi issued Lieutenant Frederick II and the Saracen horde in the pay of the excommunicated, included what is holy bulwark for his country on earth. But it was mainly the princes of the Holy Church was the Vicar of Christ, that the sky like to see all experience the power of humility, the mysterious ascendancy which pleased the Lord to endow its elected. Francis was the first to do had he not, in a moment of crisis as experienced by saints, light management and asked for his seraphic soul? Of the elders of Israel came to the Virgin, who was not yet thirty years old then, messages of this kind: “To his dear sister in Christ, to his mother, Lady Claire servant of Christ, Ugolino Ostia, unworthy bishop and sinner. Since the time it took to deprive me of your interviews saints, save me from the joy of heaven, such bitterness of heart made my tears flow as if I could not find the feet of Jesus the consolation that never refuses love, my mind would come to fail and my soul to blend. Where is the joy of this glorious celebrated Passover with you and the other servants of Christ. I knew I was a sinner; but the memory of the supereminence your virtue, my misery overwhelms me, and I think unworthy of ever finding this conversation saints, if your tears and prayers not get through for my sins? So I give you my soul; to you I entrust my spirit, for you answer me in the Day of Judgment. The Lord is coming soon Pope in Assisi; May I accompany you and goodbye! Say hello to my sister Agnes (it was the same sister Claire and her first daughter in God); greet all your sisters in Christ “.
The great Cardinal Ugolino, who is over eighty years old, became shortly after Gregory IX. During his pontificate fourteen years, who was one of the most glorious and most laborious of the thirteenth century, it never ceased to interest Claire perils of the Church and the immense problems whose office threatened to crush his weakness . For, says the contemporary historian of our saint, “he knew what love can do, and that access the sacred palace is always free for virgins to whom the King of Heaven to give himself any request could be denied?”
Exile, who after the death of Francis was extended twenty-seven years for the saint had yet to finish last. Wings of fire, sighted by his daughters over his head and covering his shoulders, indicating that it also seraphic training was completed. At the news of the imminent departure of such an interesting whole Church, the Pontiff then, Innocent IV came from Perugia with the Cardinals in his suite. He issued one last test to the humility of the holy, ordering him to bless the bread before him we had presented to the blessing of the Supreme Pontiff; heaven, ratifying the invitation of the Pope and obedience Claire about these loaves made at the blessing of the Virgin, they seemed all marked with a cross.
The prediction that Claire should not die without having visited the Lord surrounded by his disciples, was accomplished. The Vicar of Jesus Christ presided the solemn funeral Assisi wanted to make that which was his second glory before men and before God. Already they began regular chants for the dead, we prescribe lorsqu’Innocent wanted substituate the Office of the dead than virgin saints; However, the observation that a similar canonization, before the body had not even been given to the earth, would run the risk of seeming premature, the Pontiff left back songs accustomed. The insertion of the Virgin Catalogue of the Saints was that the rest deferred for two years.
Claire O, the reflection of the Bridegroom which the church is adorned in this world enough for you; this is what comes directly light. The clarity of the Lord delights in playing with the crystal of your soul so pure, increasing the joy of heaven, giving joy on this day in exile valley. Celestial lighthouse whose light is so soft, enlighten our darkness. May we with you, by the sharpness of the heart, spoke righteousness of thought, by the simplicity of the look, strengthen us the divine ray flickering in the soul hesitant and darkens our troubles, qu’écarte or breaks duplicity shared between God and the earth life.
Your life, O virgin, was not so divided. The highest poverty, that you had to master and guide, preserved your mind this fascination frivolity tarnishes the luster of real property for us mortals. The posting of whatever passes kept your eye fixed on eternal realities; He opened your soul to the seraphic ardor which were completed to make you emulate your father Francis. Also, like the Seraphim who only have eyes for God, your work on earth was huge; and St. Damian, while you vécûtes was a firm foundation on which the old world could support its ruins.
Deign us continue your rescue. Multiply your daughters and keep them loyal to follow the examples that will make them, like their mother, the powerful support of the Church. The Franciscan family in its various branches always warms your rays; that all the religious order illuminates their sweet clarity. Finally shine on all, O Claire, to show us what this life worth passing and one that should not end.
FEAST OF ST. CLARE, Virgin, Religious Foundress/ TUESDAY – NINTH WEEK AFTER PENTECOST
“Dilexísti justítiam”
INTROIT: Psalm 44: 8
Satiásti, Dómine, famíliam tuam munéribus sacris: ejus, quæsumus, semper interventióne nos réfove, cujus solémnia celebrámus. Per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum Fílium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti, Deus…
Thou hast loved justice, and hated iniquity: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. (Ps. 44: 2) My heart hath uttered a good word: I speak my works to the King. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.
St. Clare and St. Elizabeth of Hungary
COLLECT
Graciously hear us, O God, our Savior that, as we rejoice in the festival of blessed Clare, Thy virgin, so we may be taught by the spirit of pious devotion. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, Forever and ever.
EPISTLE: 2 Corinthians 10,17-18 ; 11,1-2
Lesson from the Epistle of Bl. Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians
Brethren, he that glory, let him glory in the Lord. For not that he that commendeth himself is approved, but he whom God commendeth. Would to God you could bear with some little of my folly, but do bear with me. For I am jealous of you with the jealousy of God. For I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
GRADUAL: Psalm 44: 5
With thy comeliness and thy beauty set out, proceed prosperously, and reign. Because of truth, and meekness and justice: and thy right hand shall conduct thee wonderfully.
ALLELUIA: Ps 44:15-16
After her shall virgins be brought to the King: her neighbors shall be brought to thee with gladness. Alleluia, alleluia.
GOSPEL: Matt. 25: 1-13
Then shall the kingdom of heaven be like to ten virgins, who taking their lamps went out to meet the bridegroom and the bride. And five of them were foolish, and five wise. But the five foolish, having taken their lamps, did not take oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with the lamps. And the bridegroom tarrying, they all slumbered and slept.
And at midnight there was a cry made: Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye forth to meet him. Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise: Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out. The wise answered, saying: Lest perhaps there be not enough for us and for you, go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. Now whilst they went to buy, the bridegroom came: and they that were ready, went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut.
But at last come also the other virgins, saying: Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answering said: Amen I say to you, I know you not. Watch ye therefore, because you know not the day nor the hour.
OFFERTORY: Psalm 44: 10
The daughters of kings in thy glory: the queen stood on thy right hand in gilded clothing, surrounded with variety.
SECRET
May the offering of Thy consecrated people be accepted by Thee, O Lord, in honor of Thy saints, by whose merits it knoweth that it hath received aid in time of trouble. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God,
PREFACE Common Preface
It is truly meet and just, right and for our salvation that we should at all times and in all places, give thanks unto Thee, O holy Lord, Father almighty, everlasting God: through Christ our Lord. Through Whom the Angels praise Thy Majesty, the Dominations worship it, the Powers stand in awe. The Heavens and the Heavenly hosts together with the blessed Seraphim in triumphant chorus unite to celebrate it. Together with them we entreat Thee, that Thou mayest bid our voices also to be admitted, while we say in lowly praise:
SANCTUS, SANCTUS, SANCTUS Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria Tua. Hosanna in excelsis. Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. Hosanna in excelsis.
COMMUNION Matt. 25, 4 and 6
The five wise virgins took oil in their vessels with the lamps: and at midnight there was a cry made, Behold the bridegroom cometh: go ye forth to meet Christ our Lord.
POSTCOMMUNION
Thou hast filled Thy household, O Lord, with sacred gifts; ever comfort us, we beseech Thee, through her intercession whose festival we celebrate. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God…
Death of St. Clare
“Our labor here is brief, but the reward is eternal. Do not be disturbed by the clamor of the world, which passes like a shadow” ~St. Clare of Assisi †
Holy mother Clare, you turned your back on the world. All smoke and noise and embraced the eternal kingdom glorious, precious and eternal. Turning away from all that is destined to is in that process already! Turn to dust. St. Clare, time is short! Pray that I might fervently focus my heart and mind on Christ, roll up my sleeves and get busy with the works of mercy and so be prepared for my Lord, so soon to come! Thank you holy mother Clare, for your prayers and help. Amen.
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