SAINT CLARE

11 August 2025

Phil 3, 8-21; 4, 4-9

Introduction

 

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

I believe that we cannot fully understand what Saint Clare and Saint Francis mean to us, and I believe that we will only discover this when we meet them. I think that their attention towards us, their motherhood and fatherhood, are still largely unknown to us. We are all attracted to and have a soft spot for Francis and Clare, but can we transform this soft spot into communion, can we transform it into a dialogue with them: ‘What was is that motivated you, how did you do it?’

I believe that they are happier than we are to help us understand what motivated them and how they did it, precisely because of the love they have for us and precisely because, since we are the ones who are carrying on the same work that they were unable to complete, they want us to do it; otherwise, theirs would also remain unfinished. They are inextricably linked to us. There are Franciscans, Poor Clares and many saints in the Franciscan family, but that was not what was in their hearts. They wanted a people like us, brothers and sisters, men and women who would live seeking the Lord.

Therefore, I ask You, Father, to loosen with your forgiveness even today the bonds within us that prevent us from living the freedom of Francis and Clare, a freedom that they were denied to experience fully, but which they tasted and touched. They also offered that it was impossible for them to live freely; they knew it and offered it.

May your forgiveness descend upon all the tricks we use, may it descend to free our thoughts from all the burdens that the world has placed upon us, that education and normality according to the spirit of the world have placed upon us. Free us from all those bonds that lead the Earth to be, in the end, the Lower Purgatory, almost close to Hell. May your forgiveness restore to us those wings that our soul has had since conception, because it was made and created to live fully in mystical union with You, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Merciful God, who inspired Saint Clare with an ardent love for evangelical poverty, grant, through her intercession, that following Christ, poor and humble, we may enjoy your vision in the perfect joy of your kingdom. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who is God and lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit for ever and ever.

 

Reflection

Happy feast day to all!

I believe that these words that St Paul wrote to the Philippians[1] are the programme of normal, not extraordinary, life for a Christian and, therefore, even more so for us.

I believe that the real trouble we find ourselves in today in this world is because the message has been conveyed that these things are extraordinary. It was Lucifer’s greatest and most cunning trick, and he caught everyone. Very few remained outside his net, and they were exceptional cases: the saints. The norm is to belong to the spirit of the world. By beginning to think according to the spirit of the world, what was not right became right, what was not beautiful became beautiful, and what was not good at all became good.

Nowadays, we have reached a level where even what is diabolical is seen as holy, and we no longer understand what is right. After the passage of the False Prophet, we have reached this point: we no longer know what is right. Two thousand years of confusion… and his seal! However, even though we did not want it, thank God, they excluded us, and we are the Church of Jesus Christ of the Universe. We have Francis and Clare, Mary and Joseph as our father and mother, and we are united with the Central Nucleus and our faithful brothers and sisters.

I return to St Paul. Each of us, writing to the other, should write this, in our own words and with our own originality. These words were written by Clare and Francis. And I am sure that each of us, myself included, has been won over by these words. Unfortunately, then, with the currents of the spirit of the world, we cool down and warm up, cool down and warm up, don’t we? But these words won us over, because otherwise you would not have taken the steps you all took: you left this and that, you moved and went to live in our villages, you made strong decisions. You did this because you let yourselves be won over by Christ and you could say these words. Then, you have your ups and downs, I know.

So, I asked myself: how did Clare and Francis do it? Where did they find the strength and courage, after the first yes, as we all did as well, to resist the trials of this world? They helped each other a lot, both of them, we know that. Even after they were forced to separate, in the most difficult moments Francis had to go to Clare. He often arrived exhausted and left with renewed strength after spending time with her.

St Paul ends by saying courageously: “Do as I have done”[2]; he says this in more than one of his letters; he has this courage: “Be imitators of me”[3] .

If we take Francis and Clare as examples to imitate – we always look at poverty – note that the poverty they lived was not that of not having money, of being beggars, it was poverty from the world, being detached from the world. They wanted nothing to do with the spirit of the world. That poverty! There are many signs of Francis that also apply to Clare. The most famous, which you may have heard me mention before, is that Francis was given an oil mill where he could make oil, along with the entire olive grove. He received it, then spent the night in prayer and in the morning said, ‘I realise that if I have the oil mill, I have to worry about making oil. I have to worry about thieves who will come to steal my oil. I have to build a fence, otherwise animals will come in and eat my plants, I have to…’ He went to the person who had given him the oil mill and said, ‘Listen, keep it, I am better off with nothing.’ But it was not poverty for the sake of having nothing, it was poverty for the sake of being free from the spirit of the world. Do you understand? If he had taken the oil press, it would have been fine; the problem was everything that came along with having to deal with the world.

So, if we look at them, it is clear what they did, we all know. Both of them left everything. They left everything and had to flee from their relatives, from the priests, from the right-thinking people, from the ‘respectable’ people who kept saying to them, ‘But no, we’ll give you a convent’. They said to Clare: ‘You can join… (I do not remember which order)’; with Francis the bishop tried in every way to… They had to flee from everyone. They had to cut ties with everyone, otherwise they would not have made it. They distanced themselves from all those who tried to make them think according to the world. Let each of us look at ourselves and see if this is not a little bit true for all of us.

However, we also have before our eyes how it turned out: today is the memorial of Saint Clare. I tell you: she had no other choice but to flee, to cut ties. But what did that choice produce? She won over all her relatives: her mother entered the convent, her sister entered the convent, all of Assisi followed Francis and Clare, everyone. All those who had previously criticised them, all those who had previously tried to arrest them or win them over with ‘we’ll give you this, we’ll give you that’ and from whom they had fled, all returned to them and encountered Christ. They won them over to Christ.

This is the way, there is no other. True love is winning those you love over to Christ. And what is the way? Do not compromise. Every compromise means ‘I will not succeed’, every compromise means bringing Lucifer in as a partner, and then you cannot succeed.

Even Francis and Clare, however, did not manage to do everything they had to do; they did not complete their mission. I am not telling you this to lower our morale, but to try to understand how strong our battle is; this is why we must be so radical, because we are dealing with a strong enemy. It is true that God is almighty, but look how strong Lucifer is. He is not joking and he is also evil, and if you give him the slightest compromise, he will destroy you. They, who tried not to make any compromise with him, did not succeed. I cannot analyse now why, I cannot try to understand: ‘But what did they do?’ They too will have done something; they were human beings, they will have made some mistake. They are in heaven, eh, I would like to be where they are! However, it is a fact. Only Jesus Christ and Our Lady did not make mistakes. The enemy is strong.

Now, as I said before, what Francis and Clare desire most of all is to help us fulfil God’s plans, and let us not throw away this help. So, I must return here to Saint Paul, to this Letter[4]; I must return there because I know that we have everything we need: I know it, I have been told, I see it, it is clear to me. I know that each of you has also been called and has all the graces to do what he or she must do. When I say, ‘I know we have everything we need,’ it is precisely because I look at us, even more so in this historic moment.

I know that we are indestructible and invincible if we all put ourselves at the total and complete service of God’s work. We are stronger than Hell and all religions and religiosities that exist, not strong enough to defeat them, but strong enough to pass through them and win everyone over to Christ: God has given us everything. He did not give everything to Father Tomislav and Stefania Caterina, He gave and distributed to each of us our part to form his Mystical Body. Thanks also to Clare and Francis. It is beautiful!

We are all destined for this, but in order to succeed, each of us must feel strongly a fire within – and if we do not feel it, we must look for the reason why – that sometimes causes us to suffer, yes, because even this suffering is necessary. But what is that fire? What is it that resonates so strongly? A voice, a fire – call it the way you like – that keeps shouting at you: “I consider everything rubbish compared to knowing Christ.”[5] If you do not have it, go and find a lighter, do something to light this fire! “I consider everything rubbish compared to knowing Christ”, everything. Without this fire, not even the living presence of Clare, of Mary Most Holy, of the Archangels and – I am sorry to say – not even the sufferings of Father Tomislav offered for us are enough, if we do not have that fire. But if we have that fire, with the whole Church behind us and Father Tomislav with his offering, no one can stop us, no one! Everything we have decided to start will not only be accomplished, but will expand. However, everyone is necessary.

So, I conclude. Today, I wish to ask Saint Clare to enlighten each one of us, our hearts and minds, so that we cannot hide or be cunning, but that she may enlighten us if there is still something we consider more important than knowing Christ. May she show it to us, so that we can confront ourselves with God and understand what we wish to do. I ask her to pray and beg the Father, together with Francis, to remove whatever is still blocking us from entering into true life, the life that has been prepared for us thanks to them, to Clare and Francis, to Father Tomislav and Stefania Caterina, and to all those who suffered before us so that we could now do our part.

Thank you!

Let us call upon all Franciscans of every era, of every time, let us call upon all members of the Church of Jesus Christ who have prepared these times, every yes at the moment of conception to be reawakened, every small, simple, crushed person, all those who even in this time are suffering horrible and terrible things that this Earth is doing. We are truly in times that are not just bad, but worse. Let us gather all the pain, all the suffering, all the good.

And those who are ready to be baptised, I baptise them in the name of Clare and Francis, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I absolve you of your sins, I impress upon you the seal of the Holy Spirit, I give you the Sign of the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and I unite you to the Church of Jesus Christ of the Universe.

I command you, Lucifer, to go with all your black church into the lake of sulphur, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Conclusion and blessing

And all those who criticise many of you for your choices and say, ‘God does not divide, God unites’… let them go and tell this to St Francis and St Clare – there are many others, but today these two – that God unites. You all know the story of Francis and Clare, don’t you? He did not unite them at all.

May your blessing, O Lord, descend today on the entire Franciscan family of all times, may your blessing reach your whole Church throughout the universe, may it descend on creation, may it descend to open within us all those potentials and all those realities that have always been alive, so that we may live in communion with the whole Church of the Universe and with creation.

We thank you in a special way for Clare, for Francis and for those who opened the path for us. For this reason, we want to bless Father Tomislav, Stefania and those who accompanied us with them and before them.

May your blessing descend upon the entire Foundation, upon all our Sanctuaries, and in a special way upon those who desire to live in order to know Christ, upon those who desire and consider “everything rubbish compared to knowing Christ”; may it drive away the spirit of the world, may it drive away Lucifer and his seduction and cast into Hell those who have chosen him forever, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

[1] See Phil 3, 8-21; 4, 4-9

[2] See Phil 4, 9

[3] See 1 Cor 11, 1 and Phil 3, 17

[4] See Phil 3, 8-21; 4, 4-9

[5] See Phil 3, 7-8