Saint Clare: The Poverty of Prayer

I’ve been sitting on my computer, inside of a teashop in Chicago, thinking and thinking about something to write… It’s been at least 40 minutes, and I’ve still come up with nothing…I want to talk about Saint Clare of Assisi, her spirit and spirituality, whose feast we just celebrated yesterday, on August 11^th. In light of Clare, whose name in Italian (Chiara) means, “light, clear”… I feel as if I’m in the “writer’s tomb:” darkness and cobwebs on every side, fretting for a loose stone in the wall in order to dig my way out, into some light, sun light, anything. But perhaps this is a good thing…

This week, in preparation for the feast of Saint Clare, I’ve been reflecting on prayer. A novena written by a community of Poor Clare’s in New Jersey, referred to their foundress as a “strong woman of great prayer.” Clare dedicated her life to contemplation, to prayer: wedding the entirety of her self to Christ for the greater glory of God and the illumination of her fellow brothers and sisters, who were still striving to preach and proclaim that the Kingdom of God is at hand in the world.

In her letter to Saint Agnes of Prague, Clare reflects on the simplicity and beauty, the humility and poverty of Franciscan prayer:

Look upon Him Who became contemptible for you, and follow Him, making yourself contemptible in the world for Him…. O most noble Queen, gaze upon Him, consider Him, contemplate Him, as your desire to imitate Him. (The Second Letter to Saint Agnes of Prague)

Clare exhorts Agnes to look upon Jesus Christ, the “Poor Crucified” hanging upon the Cross. Jesus has become “contemptible:” despicable, reprehensible, deplorable…not only has emptied himself, taking the form of the slave (Philippians 2:7), but he has become hated. Scourged, stripped, spat upon, MURDERED, at the tips of our very human hands.

Think about it: we killed God. We stripped Him of His dignity. We threw Him to the ground and nailed Him upon the cross… this is the contempt of Christ…that we hated, denied, yes, crucified Him, and he accepted this…not begrudging us or judging us but he takes the weight of the cross, our misunderstanding, our weakness, our failings, our blindness, our sins, AND STILL willed to love us, forgive us and embrace us on that cross…  

Look upon Him, Clare exhorts us: see what you’ve done to Him and see how He responds to your actions…in love, in tenderness…in Mercy… See how He looks upon you as you look upon Him…

Prayer marks our return to God. Prayer seeks God even in the midst of our failings; and prayer can begin at the cross, where Jesus, the Way is before us. And this prayer simply begins with a gaze, a look.

Don’t be afraid to look at Him: see Jesus for who He is…see how much He loves…don’t be blinded by your ambition, your hatred, your confusion, look beyond the decaying form of his humanity and see the overwhelming heart, the love, of His divinity, of His Mercy…

Prayer begins with a gaze and is extended through our consideration. To consider Christ is to give Him a second thought. It is one thing to see the Crucified man dying there, and an entirely other experience to wonder: who is He? Why is He weeping? If He is God, why is He allowing Himself to die? Why are they killing Him? What, if anything, do I have to do with this death? A consideration of Christ, of His cross, brings us into conversation with so terrible a scene. In this raw moment, our heart, like His is made bare…

And here, Clare pushes us to go even further: contemplate Him… to Contemplate Christ is to see yourself in His sufferings, is to see how he loves you, how he loves me, at all moments, but especially there, hanging upon the wood of our salvation.

Saint Clare calls Jesus the “Mirror.” This “Mirror” is “suspended on the wood of the Cross,” and all who pass by, are challenged to “study your face within it.” When I see Jesus, or when I think of Him, am I willing to see myself in His suffering? Am I willing to understand and accept the extent to which God gave of Himself, of His only Son, so that I might not perish, so that I might not die, but receive and participate in the gift of eternal life?

To contemplate the Crucified One is to recognize that the suffering body of Jesus is our body: my body, your body. Through the grace and gift of Baptism, a grace extended and expounded upon in our Confirmation and in the Eucharist, we are incorporated into the Body of Christ…my Body, your Body, our Body, hangs upon the cross…

To gaze in prayer is to see. To consider in prayer is to reflect. To contemplate in prayer is to receive. See Jesus. Ponder Jesus. Receive Jesus… a loving exchange of glances, an exchange of persons…a communion...(and to think, that our gaze is incarnate, represented, at the altar during every Eucharistic celebration…)

Often I forget that this is the purpose of Christian prayer: communion. Prayer is not only or merely about me or my intentions, about receiving good graces and consolation, or receiving spiritual guidance as we discern God’s will…the purpose of Christian prayer is this union, communion with the Holy Trinity…about participating, entering into the Divine Life of God… (See Catechism of Catholic Church 2565).

This prayer then completes itself in action, in conversion, in imitation. To gaze, to consider, to contemplate, is not done in a vacuum…the contemplative life of prayer, to which each of us are called and made for, is a gift and grace offered to us by God (according to His mysterious ways) so that we may act like Christ, be like Christ, and ultimately be in Christ.

Saint Clare is a light for me, for the Church today. While I was traveling in Assisi, I was blessed to meet a group of Poor Clare nuns from Omaha, Nebraska. I asked the abbess of the community, Sister Theresina, for any advice she had regarding my discernment of Franciscan life. She said two things that I still carry close to my heart: “gaze upon Him.” Look upon Jesus, rest before His Eucharistic presence, gaze upon the cross. And then she invited me to spend time in prayer in scripture, so as to “incarnate” the word as St. Francis did. Sister Theresina, in the spirit of Saint Clare, was a light for me along the way… The spirit and wisdom of Clare can be seen in the heart of Saint Teresa of Calcutta. This contemporary witness speaks of prayer along the same lines of Saint Clare: “Often a deep and fervent look at Christ is the best prayer: I look at Him and He looks at me.” Our relationship with Jesus, just like any loving, intimate relationship begins with a look, an address, an exchange, and an embrace (metaphorical, at times physical).

Clare calls me back to Jesus, and our way back to Jesus begins and ends in prayer: communion. The light of Clare illumines Christ who is my Light along the Way to the Father. I know that my own prayer is changing; the witness of the saints and my experiences here in the postulancy program is continually challenging me to draw closer, to look more closely, to love…and with each glance, perhaps our heart would expand so as to receive more of Him who is our everything.

More on prayer to follow…but I leave this blog with this: sometimes it is much easier to talk about prayer than to actually do it…and often I forget that prayer isn’t something “I do,” but the Holy Spirit does through me…to gaze, to consider, to contemplate, to imitate, then is all grace. But this grace demands an open heart, a steady vigilant watcher, who is waiting to see the one for whom his or her heart lists…that we would be prepared to see Him, greet Him, receive Him… we must show up, and trust that God will do the rest….