Poor Clare Nun

Poor Clare Nun –  Sister Maria Clara of the Divine Heart of Jesus, O.S.C.                                             “Ego vos semper custodiam”  –  “I will always protect you.”   –  words of Christ to St. Clare                                         “Love God, serve God: everything is in that.”   –  St. Clare

Foundress:  Saint Clare of Assisi  (Chiara Offreduccio)

Place:  Assisi, Italy

Year:  1212 A.D.

Her Charism:  That Love may be loved is the purpose of a Poor Clare’s life.  This contemplative radical lover of Jesus and incessant seeker of God hears the call to “come apart” from the noise of the world and surround it with prayer – even arising at midnight to pray for the world and especially for the conversion of sinners.  Deeply devoted to the Eucharistic Presence of Our Lord she ardently desires to “seek His Face” in the atmosphere    of His amazing and intense Love.  Her humble, austere, and seemingly limited and inconsequential world of enclosure opens vast horizons of hope.  By befriending solitude  and following her Beloved Jesus in evangelical poverty, chastity, obedience, and enclosure, she gives clear witness that “Man belongs entirely to God Who is enough” because God is everything.  So she lives with God in the cloister and stays with Him to look with Him at the world and love with Him.  Here at the heart of the Church, she serves the Body of Christ and every human soul.  Her commitment to Jesus makes her an heiress of the well-springs of joy – for she is a Bride and beloved one of Jesus, the Spouse of her soul, Who is hidden in the Tabernacle in the lowly form of Bread.  It is here where she chooses to to hide with Him by dedicating her entire life to the one thing necessary:  being with the Person she loves the most.  Her daily manual duties also include making altar breads, and sewing the priests’ vestments and Church linens.  Through every humble action and prayer, she, like Mary, the Virgin of Bethlehem, gives birth to Jesus by the action of divine grace.