Prayer of the Day

Feast of St. Clare

To-day the Church celebrates the feast of St. Clare,  founder of the Poor Clare Order.  The words quoted above are taken from the First Reading chosen for to-days feast.  Like their author,  St. Paul,  Clare came to know Christ intimately and found deep joy and fulfilment in following Him.   Like her close friend,  Francis of Assisi,  Clare has to renounce her rich and noble family in order to dedicate her life to Christ.  But she soon found a new family in the many young women who came to share her life of poverty and prayer.  While Francis travelled over Italy and beyond preaching the Gospel,  Clare chose to live a life of silence and prayer in her home town of Assisi.

Though enclosed in her Convent,  Clare’s light shed its rays throughout the world so that to-day,  eight hundred years later,  the Poor Clare’s are one of the greatest contemplative orders in the Church.  As we celebrate the feast of St. Clare to-day,  let us also remember those countless women and men who like Clare and Francis fell in love with Christ and found their joy in following Him.  May their example teach us simplicity in this consumer society and help us to trust in God’s loving providence.