Clare of Assisi has finally found the courage to follow the man whose spirituality sets her soul on fire: Francis of Assisi, who has led her unerringly to Jesus of Nazareth. She herself inspires so many women to follow her that she begins the order of Poor Ladies, or Poor Clares, a group of women who have given up their possessions to live in poverty and near silence, working hard, begging for food to sustain them, and praying continually. At least twice in the history of Assisi, her profound prayers for her people of Assisi and for her nuns are credited with saving them during war time. Against her wishes, Francis appoints her Abbess of her Franciscan community. Although she never leaves San Damiano, the Pope and Bishops come to her for her wise counsel. Later she is joined by other relatives, including her own sister and mother.
Francis and Clare quite simply had fallen in love with Jesus of Nazareth and desired to live a life similar to his, of voluntary poverty, humility, and great compassionate love for his Father, all people - and all creation. Imitating Christ, however, meant nothing to her unless she also became another Christ, heart on fire with unselfish love. Clare said with penetrating wisdom:
"We become what we love, and who we love shapes what we become. If we love things, we become a thing. If we love nothing, we become nothing. Imitation is not a literal mimicking of Christ, rather it means becoming the Image of the Beloved, an image disclosed through transformation. This means we are to become vessels of God's compassionate love for others."
Clare was well acquainted with violence. Her own father, after she left the family home, tracked her down to the monastery where Francis had hidden her, and physically tried to drag her out the monastery chapel. She resisted by clinging to the altar and finally showing her shorn head, courageously declaring that she had made her choice to become a nun. How hard it must have been for a young girl to face her father's rage and animosity! What suffering, to have her status changed from being the beloved oldest daughter to becoming the object of parental outrage and rejection! Yet she voluntarily accepted this undeserved suffering so that she could grow closer to Jesus and learn how to love more deeply. In meditating on Jesus hanging bloody on a cross, she must have understood Jesus' voluntary acceptance of undeserved suffering.
Franciscan Father Richard Rohr says
"The cross was Jesus' voluntary acceptance of undeserved pain as an act of total solidarity with all of the pain of the world. Reflection on this mystery of love can change your whole life."
Reflection on the crucified Jesus surely changed Clare's life as she continued to pray and work to become more and more who she loved - the crucified and risen Christ.
What can we, who do not live a monastic life, learn from Clare's life? First, we can ask ourselves what and who we love. For that's what we'll become.
I love Clare's imagery: if the major love of our lives is things, then we become a thing. Things have no hearts or souls. We can see this in those who live for money, success, and wealth: they have no "heart" for others, but use them as things, as consumers, as worker ants, with no regard for their welfare.
Yes, we need to surround ourselves with things in order to live. But - how great a value do we place on them? How emotionally attached are we to things we no longer need? Do we feel actual pain at the thought of giving up a favorite dress we can no longer wear, or a phone we've replaced? That's a good pain, a good suffering. When we no longer need certain clothing, can we freely give it away to those in need? When we have extra furniture or dishes or pots and pans, or electronic possessions that we've replaced with new ones, can we give them away? Can we give money to charities even if that means the pain of cutting back somewhat on our own entertainment? Perhaps more importantly, can we prioritize our use of time to take time to go through our things to choose what to keep and what to give away?
This is love in action, because our refusal to love things most frees us to love people most. As we give things away, we can think more deeply of the suffering of others who can't buy the things they need. Who depend on others' generosity. When we give to them, in spiritual solidarity with their pain, we give to the Crucified Christ.
If we love nothing, Clare says, we become nothing. Truly, there's a safety in not loving anyone, not even creation. We don't risk losing our hearts or the pain of having them broken. But it's our love for others that takes us out of nothingness and propels us into true being. The more we give our hearts away, the more we receive ourselves in the giving. The more we chain ourselves to the discipline of loving unselfishly, the more freely we live lives of unutterable purpose and worth.
The more unselfishly we love, the more we discover our solidarity with all of God's people, even those of different races, nationalities, faiths, and sexual orientations. We can even, deep in our souls, love those whom our society calls our "enemies," praying for their welfare. We love as other Christs, willing to "die to" our own prejudices and opinions and dislikes to discover the real life of loving others for who they truly are: our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Clare gave up emotional attachment to things, even attachment to speaking her own words. She knew the value of silence. We need silence in order to pray, to hear the voice of God more clearly than the voice of our own obsessional concerns. She gave up emotional attachment to security by living on the generosity of her convent's neighbors.
She gave up all this in order to have the freedom to love God, to love people, to love creation, without distractions, without compromise. She learned this from the life and death of Jesus, who deliberately gave up his home, his security, even the constant support of family, and finally his life, to be free to live and love with compassion for others. Our own suffering might be more mental and emotional than physical, but it is still a necessary embrace of the cross to free us for love.
Each of us is called uniquely by God. We can never rediscover our unity with God, with Jesus Son of God, by simply imitating or mimicking someone else. We need to look at the concrete reality of our own lives, pray, and ask God to show us how to grow in freedom from being overly attached to things, to security, to money, to success. To grow in freedom from the world's distractions so our minds and hearts are more free for personal and compassionate love.
Step by step, day by day, may we choose to become like Jesus, who calls himself "The Way." May we ask the Holy Spirit to set us on fire with love for Jesus so that Jesus is who we most desire to become, in the concrete reality of our own relationships and responsibilities, in our personal ownership of things and desires for wealth or success. Jesus is the Name above all other names, the One who is most worthy of our love, the One Who will teach us how to "die to" our emotional over-attachments to things and how to cease our fearful flights from the sacrificial demands of true loving. Through embracing the cross of Jesus, may we attain the freedom and joy of eternal life in love!