God blessed greatly: "You must keep his commandments."
18th Week, Friday
Deuteronomy 4:32-40 / Matthew 16:24-28
Henry Ward Beecher makes this observation. Suppose someone gave you a
dish a sand mixed with tiny iron filings. You look for the filings with your
eyes and you comb for them with your fingers. But you can't find them. Then you
take a small magnet and draw it through the sand in the dish. Suddenly the
magnet is covered with filings. The ungrateful person is like our fingers
combing the sand and finds nothing in life to be thankful for. That person finds hundreds of things in life
to be grateful for. The grateful person, on the other hand, is like the magnet
sweeping through the sand. That person finds hundreds of things in life to be
grateful for.
*** Do we look upon God's commandments as opportunities for expressing
gratitude to him? "God has two dwellings: one in heaven and the other in
the meek and thankful heart. Izaak Walton
***
Though of noble birth and well-educated, Clare (1193-1253) was attracted
by the ideals of poverty of St. Francis of Assisi. Against the pressure of her
family, she distributed her possessions to the poor and founded the second
Franciscan Order of Poor Clares, who dedicate themselves to a life of poverty
and prayer. Claire understood that poverty makes a person free for love: to
love God undivided and to be available to our people. Her motto was: “God, I am
happy that you created me.” Aren’t that true riches?
***
Our experiences in life are mostly with people and with the events that
happen around us. Nonetheless there are also spiritual experiences when we get
an enlightenment or a deep internal stillness that we know is not fabricated by
ourselves. Those kinds of experiences can be termed as experiences of God and
usually there is a message for us in that experience. In the 1st reading, Moses recounted for the
people how God had revealed and spoken to them. Their experience is God is
beyond their own fabrication and as God spoke and revealed Himself to them, He
also gave them laws and commandments so that the people will know how to relate
with God.
In the gospel, Jesus gave the requirements of being His disciple, or
what is often called, the cost of discipleship. So, if we really want to follow
Jesus, then we have to renounce ourselves and take up our cross and follow Him.
And that might mean even putting our needs aside and make sacrifices for others
without thinking of gaining any benefit for ourselves. That would sound
difficult and challenging especially when we are so used to thinking of ourselves
and having things our way and even making others give way to us. But for all
that we might gain, it will be a gain in vain because we cannot offer what we
gain in exchange for our lives. But when we lose our lives for Jesus, what we
will gain will be a revelation of God's love for us. It is a love that we will
gain not just in this world but also in the world to come.
***
Opening Prayer
Lord our God, we thank you today for the example of St. Clare. She
understood that to possess you, one has to be free from things that distract
from you. Grant us too, the riches of retaining our inner freedom as regards
possessions and attachments and open us to all the riches of giving ourselves
to you and to people. We ask you this through Christ, our Lord.
***
Saint Clare
Feast Day August 11
What would you say is the outstanding quality of true friendship? Is it
loyalty? having the same goals, the same values? the ability to help each other
become the best person possible? being comfortable together so that no one has
to put on an act? Clare and Francis of Assisi had a friendship that reflected
all these qualities, but they had something more: their deep love of Jesus,
which made them want to live according to the Gospel.
Clare was born of a wealthy family in Assisi, Italy. As a teenager she
became aware that Francis, the handsome, wealthy leader of youth in Assisi, had
greatly changed. He used to spend a great deal of money having a good time. Now
he had no money, no possessions, no family. He dressed in a brown robe, begged
for food, and lived on the streets. Yet Francis seemed to enjoy life more than
ever.
Gradually Clare saw that the source of his joy and inner peace was his
living in poverty like Jesus. In 1211 Clare left home to join Francis. He cut
off her long hair, gave her a rough woolen habit to wear, and took her to stay
for a while with the Benedictine sisters. When he found a little house near San
Damiano Church, he moved Clare and other women who had joined her into this
little place and guided her in beginning a new religious order. Her sister and
mother joined her. Clare did not leave this convent, yet she became known all
over. People devoted to Christ attract others. It is the Christ in these people
that we see.
Clare’s community wanted to live according to the rule of Francis. They
slept on the floor each night, went barefoot, kept silence much of the day, ate
no meat, and spent hours in prayer. They ate donated food because they had no
money.
Clare became abbess, the head of this community and held this position
for forty-two years. As abbess, Clare eagerly chose the hardest work for
herself and inspired the others to trust in God.
In 1240 and again in 1241 the convent and the whole city were threatened
by an invasion of the Saracens. Panic spread. Clare told her Sisters not to be
afraid but to trust in Jesus. She prayed to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament to
save his people. Both times the convent and the whole city were spared.
Clare died after twenty-seven years of illness. Her community still
exists today. The Sisters are called the Poor Clares.
Pope Pius XII made Clare the patron of television because it is said
that one Christmas Eve when Clare was sick in bed she saw the crib and heard
the singing in church as if she were there.
