Monday, August 11, 2014

Homily: August 11 - St. Clare - Not a Disney Princess




On the feast of Corpus Christi this year, I told the story about how St. Clare, already a professed religious for 30 years, turned away a barbarian army from sacking the town of Assisi.  As the army approached, she prostrated herself before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and prayed for the protection of Assisi.  She heard the voice of Jesus assuring her from the monstrance, “I will always have you in my care.”  Clare, took the monstrance in her hands and raised it in front of the approaching army, and at its sight, the attacking army was filled with fear and fled the town.

This is why statues and religious art depict St. Clare holding the monstrance, as does the statue near my confessional, and the stained glass window in the choir loft.

There is another story of her great love and devotion to the Eucharist.  Toward the end of her life, when she was too ill to attend Mass, the Holy Spirit would project the Holy Mass on the wall of her room so that she could watch it from her bed.  This is why this saint from the 1200s was named the patron saint of television.  And it’s not a mere coincidence that a poor clare nun, Mother Angelica founded the first worldwide Catholic Television network, EWTN. 

The reading from the letter to the Philippians is so fitting.  Paul speaks of “forgetting what lies behind” and “straining forward to what lies ahead.”  St. Clare was born in a family with great wealth.  She could have married a very wealthy suitor and lived in luxury and comfort her whole life.  But this beautiful woman chose to follow the Lord in poverty, chastity, and obedience as a cloistered nun.  She gave up everything to follow Jesus and she became a saint.

In fact, in that first group of women joining saint clare in the monastery, were women who were eligible to marry dukes and kings.  But they followed Clare’s example to follow the poor Christ.  Agnes, princess of Bohemia broke off her royal engagement  to the emperor Frederick II to join Clare’s monastery in Prague.
The idea of entering a monastery in order to pursue a life of prayer and joyful communion with the Lord is quite foreign to many today.  Our modern culture infects our young girls with a lie that they cannot be happy unless they, like a Disney princess, marry prince charming and lives in a castle filled with all the luxuries money can buy. 

In Clare, that lie is untwisted.  She did marry a king, but a poor king, who suffered and died for her.  She reminds all of us that the greatest happiness in this life and the life to come is found in deep, intimate communion with Jesus Christ. 

Here are the words Clare wrote to princess Agnes: “I am filled with joy and gladness, for though you could have enjoyed the magnificence, and dignity, and honor of the world, you have rejected all these things.  Keep in your heart the burning desire to unite yourself to the poor and crucified Christ.  What a wonderful and praiseworthy exchange!  To leave the things of time, for those of eternity, to possess a blessed eternal life.”


Through the example and intercession of St. Clare may we too leave the things of time, for those of eternity, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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