Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia
Claire Orforducci was born of noble parents in Assisi.
She was a woman whom God had blessed with a beautiful countenance,
a magnificent personality, and perhaps the greatest mind,
or one of the greatest minds that God has ever created.
And yet, Claire Orforducci, whom we know and celebrate today as St. Claire,
would consider these nothings in light of the virtue that she was called to pursue.
And so she truly knew what it meant that no one could bear unless the branch was attached to the vine.
She came to know and understand the full meaning of these,
and she would seek always and everywhere to sanctify those natural gifts that God had blessed her with
in order to bring all souls.
She was described by Pope John Paul II as a passionate lover of Christ crucified,
and it was her love of Christ crucified that would imbue her whole life.
Indeed, it is hard to imagine that any human being could exceed the holiness of this most blessed Virgin of Christ, St. Claire.
She can truly be called, as far as it can be said of a human being, an icon of the Mother of God,
for she, in a human person, exhibits the virtue of the Mother of God,
in a most extraordinary way.
And indeed, if we take time to reflect upon the life of St. Claire,
it is hard to imagine that there is not one human endeavor when it is exercised for the glory of God
and for the good of mankind that wasn't in some way touched by the works of St. Claire.
One pope pointed out that this woman, cloistered away from the world,
would teach the world all things, most especially the virtue of charity
and how that virtue is to imbue everyone.
Indeed, we can't imagine anything that her life didn't touch.
She taught us first and foremost to pray,
and indeed she taught us the power of prayer when the infidels would come in order to ransack,
and only God knows what they had intended to do with those virgins consecrated to him.
But St. Claire, always thinking in a supernatural light,
would drive them away by the blessed sacrament.
And so, first and foremost, she teaches us that all we do,
must be imbued by the love of that most blessed sacrament,
that sacrament by which we have because of the crucified Christ.
And so, she would go about doing all things for the glory of God.
Indeed, there has never been a more accomplished seamstress in the life of the world,
there has never been a more accomplished baker in the life of the world,
there has never been a more accomplished gardener in the life of the world,
there has never been a more accomplished mother in the life of the world.
She had attended,
care for the sisters,
and indeed she would often get up at night and tuck the sisters in
whose covering had fallen off during the course of the night.
She was given the extraordinary grace to keep constant vigils and fast,
and yet she knew this being a supernatural grace,
she would not impose them upon the other sisters.
Indeed, in the chapel in which St. Claire would constantly keep those vigils,
you know the spot she had in that chapel,
because the stone floor is about four inches,
lower, where St. Claire would constantly pray than where the other sisters would gather.
And yet, despite all these things,
she would be tireless in her care for the souls entrusted to her
and all those that would come to the sisters in order to seek their guidance and their help.
Indeed, if anyone has seen the slippers she made for St. Francis
in order to cover the sacred stigmata,
they speak themselves of the love of Christ crucified,
for they have a quality by which they truly hide the stigmata,
because St. Francis wanted them hid in humility,
but yet they also show that in them St. Claire saw the marks of Christ crucified,
and so they are a most beautiful production from her hands
that both give glory to God and also, as it were, in a humble fashion,
not overdone, but with a beauty that is unmatched.
Indeed, she wove many garments for the holy sacrifice of the Mass
that was a sign of the Holy Sacrifice.
Indeed, she wove many garments for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
that was a sign of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
that was a sign of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
that are unparalleled in their beauty and their exaltation,
and so she teaches us all how to sanctify each and every endeavor.
She teaches us by her trade as a seamstress the virtue and gift of modesty
and how chastity is a safeguard for charity,
and indeed that without chastity there can be no true charity in the world.
She would garden and use the herbs to care for the sick and the elderly and the flowers,
in order to enhance the beauty of the holy altar.
So she teaches us how everything is to be exalted,
how everything is exalted when it is returned to Almighty God.
And so she spent her life in prayer and her life in labor for love of Christ crucified,
and she teaches us that we too must do so.
When St. Francis would have trouble trying to convince brothers
not to try to imitate the extraordinary penances that he was to undergo,
because he knew full well that what he was given was a supernatural reality
and that one certainly had to perceive that only by the grace of God could they do these things.
There were some brothers who foolishly yet naively would seek to imitate him in everything he did.
St. Francis, knowing that eventually this would either cause their death or cause them to leave the Institute,
had trouble with one brother.
So finally he did not despair, but he brought the brother to St. Clair,
and so St. Francis did.
St. Francis did not despair, but he brought the brother to St. Clair,
and so St. Clair showed herself to be a true imitator of the Mother of God,
for by her good counsel she was to convince the brother that he was to go back
and do what St. Francis instructed him to do.
And so she shows herself truly a mother of good counsel to all the world,
and so she shows that tender care of a mother for souls,
that we are to do what Almighty God wants us to do,
and what he clearly reveals to do his will,
and that we are not to imitate the saints in the extraordinary,
that we are not to imitate the saints in the extraordinary,
things that are truly of a supernatural reality,
because it is a false mysticism indeed.
We see the effects of this false mysticism in false religions like Hinduism,
who seek, as it were, to do extraordinary things beyond human capacity,
and only get consumed by the vice of pride,
as St. Augustine had pointed out very early on in the life of the Church.
And so we must humbly submit ourselves, as all the saints did,
in order to take up the mantle of our Lord,
doing what he has given us the grace to do, no more and no less,
because it is doing only the will of God in each and every moment of our life
that we can accomplish the sanctity that St. Clare attained to.
And so we must constantly, like her, humbly pray to our Lord and Savior
so that we can discern through the means that Christ has established
in order to know those things,
those means which are revealed to us through Holy Mother Church
and are not the product or figment,
of our imaginations, no matter how wonderful they may be.
St. Clare was a most humble virgin,
and she, amongst very few human beings,
was gifted by gifts of nature that are absolutely extraordinary and a marvel to men.
But those gifts of nature were nothing compared to those gifts
sanctified by the grace of God.
And so, St. Clare, after a life of labor,
after a life of prayer,
after a life of constant fast and constant vigilance,
would eventually have her body worn out.
And so she was consigned to a bed
where she could no longer attend the holy sacrifice of the Mass,
but God would not deprive her from participating in that holy sacrifice of the Mass.
When the Mass was being offered,
the wall of St. Clare's cell would disappear
and she would see the holy sacrifice of the Mass occurring.
And it was because of this extraordinary miracle,
worked by Almighty God in her life,
that Pope John XXIII,
made her the patron saint of the video media.
And so we certainly know that it is one industry in this day,
in this age,
that certainly can use the touch and the influence
in the intercession of St. Clare.
For her purity,
the perversity that is purveyed through this media
is the exact opposite,
the exact contra to the purity exhibited in the life of Clare.
Indeed, that is what her name means,
purity itself.
And so let us turn to her in this day and age
so that she can again touch society
in each and every one of its endeavors,
that she can bring that pure love of Christ crucified,
that passionate love of Christ crucified
to all that mankind does
so that a true society,
a true culture of love,
a true culture of charity
may rise again in the minds and hearts of all men
so that we may each labor as St. Clare labored
to help each other in this day and age.
Sojourn in this pilgrimage in this life
in order to attain that pure vision of God
in the life to come,
that vision which she now beholds
and from her heavenly abode
she seeks to intercede constantly for mankind
so that each and every one of us
can become as she became in this life
an icon, that is,
someone transformed into the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God
so that we can show forth the love of God
that burns in our hearts
so that the world again,
may abandon its pursuit of the pleasures,
those pleasures it began to pursue
at the very beginning of the life of St. Clare and St. Francis.
It was during their lifetime
that the modern mad pursuit
for the life of pleasure,
the life of entertainment that began,
that is, through the work of mankind,
the great technological advances,
mankind would begin to abandon the Almighty God,
thinking himself, taking complacency in himself,
in the things that he could do,
not realizing that each and every gift God gives us,
each and every technological advance,
he allows us to discover,
he does so,
not for our own glory,
not for our own satisfaction,
but in somehow to incorporate that gift
into the work of Christ.
And so, let us strive
through the intercession of the saints like St. Clare,
let us strive to try to claim all things
for the kingdom of Christ
so that we too may influence
the world as St. Clare.
She was a cloistered virgin nun
who never left the cloister
and yet her influence extends to all the world
and insofar as a human endeavor
and most especially those profound human endeavors
are exercised in good,
in some way they were touched by this virgin,
this cloistered virgin of Almighty God,
this passionate lover of Christ crucified.
And so, let us strive also
to attain that passionate love of St. Clare,
so that we too like her in St. Francis
can be said to love God
with the love of the seraph,
that is the burning love of those
who surrounded Almighty God
and whose only ministration
was to praise and to glorify him
so that praising and glorifying him in this life
we may help each other
attain that life to come
so that we do not have to suffer
the eternal fires of that kingdom of Satan
which we strive to defeat
each and every moment of our life
in which St. Clare defeated
from the first moment she came forth
from her mother's womb
and continued to assail
all her time in this life
and now intercedes for us in heaven
in order that we may have the strength
and the grace to persevere
in this veil of tears
and to attain that glory
that she now has.
Amen.