“A Sister Among Sisters”

For me, St. Clare has always been harder to put my finger on than St. Francis as we keep going deeper into the heart of the Franciscan charism this year. St. Francis is obviously a well-known and dynamic figure, often stretched in our stories to seem larger than life, so it can be easy for me to relegate St. Clare to the “quieter” part of Franciscan life. While St. Clare’s eventually cloistered existence may lend some credence to this instinct, I learned on the Prayer Retreat that St. Clare was not someone that anyone could cast aside or dismiss easily. She may have lived out her calling away from the eyes of the world instead of out in the famous marketplace like Francis, but she was just as unyielding in her insistence on serving Lady Poverty, even when various church figures voiced opposition.

St. Clare was a woman who knew how to hold many seemingly diverging things together. She felt a call to go out and be with the poor yet spent most of her time in secluded prayer with a select group of companions. She was intensely devoted to pursuing the vocation she felt that God was calling her to and also to remaining in communion with a church that was often wary of her desire to chart a new path. Maybe this was the same ability that allowed her to gather and guide women from all manner of backgrounds in a new and challenging way of life, remaining “a sister among sisters” even when she was obliged to take on leadership roles she never wanted. This description of Clare from one of the Poor Clare nuns we got to visit on retreat resonated with me in a particular way as someone who has had the gift of going through life with two sisters. Coming from that background made living in community with two new women at the start of the year feel remarkably similar and incredibly eye-opening all at the same time, something that is true of St. Clare’s style of prayer for me as well. I appreciate that this prayer style, much like its maker, takes the time to treat contemplation seriously while also being ultimately geared towards action. I have been grateful for the direction this combination gives not only to my prayer but to other aspects of my life as well, including at my service site and in my community. And I look forward to the ways it and St. Clare will continue to guide me in the coming months so that I may become ever more fully a sister among sisters.

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