Feast of St. Clare – Year B: 13.08.24
Mass @ 10am – St. Clare’s Church, Graiguecullen
Introduction:
We gather on August 13th, two days after August 11th, the Feast of St. Clare. As the feast fell on a Sunday we transferred the feast to today, allowing the Lourdes pilgrims to return, when the first opportunity would be afforded to all of us to gather in celebration of St. Clare and indeed the Poor Clare’s presence among us for the past 131 years.
The Poor Clare’s who by their life and example witness to us the face of God. We seek His face. We ring their bell. We knock on their door. We write out the intention.
Let’s for a moment recollect ourselves as we call to mind our woundedness and brokenness in His presence and so we pray…
Homily:
I purposefully used the gospel text of this day for todays transferred feast. It’s the question on everyone’s mind: “Who is the greatest”. Mohammed Ali maintained he was the greatest. And we remember how the greatest became so vulnerable in his final illness. The Olympian medallists who specialised in a particular sport might justly say ‘I am the greatest’, the greatest on the pommel horse, the greatest at the 400M sprint, the greatest in the pole vaulting, whatever.
Last night I attended ‘Hurling for Cancer Research’ in Netwatch Cullen Park. Two teams, the best of inter-county players, togged out in a high scoring match, that wasn’t about winning but raising much needed funds for cancer research. I sat beside good friends of one of the goalies, who had recovered from leukaemia. So ‘Who is the greatest’?
In a few days-time our young people will receive their Leaving Cert results. It used to be the routine of visiting the school to collect your envelope, now it’s all online. Points don’t define a person. No one will ask how you’ve done the day after the results. There will be photographs printed in local papers of the high achievers. But everyone knows it’s what you do with those results will determine the answer to ‘Who is the greatest’.
The disciples ask Jesus a little more in their question: “who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” . And what does he do, he takes a child centre stage. It is said that child was none other than St. Ignatius of Antioch, centuries later it could have been St. Clare. It’s the little things that make someone great.
Clare was only a little child when she realised God had plans for her, very different from those laid out by her parents. She had everything a girl might want growing up – she had a secure home, a noble background and great prospects. But she threw it all away in her spurning of an arranged marriage at the age of 12 and at the age of 18 having run away from home she received the Franciscan habit from St. Francis himself.
Her family didn’t give up on trying to coax her back home. They didn’t understand. And then soon her sister Agnes would join her and later her mother and then another sister. All of them walking from privilege into poverty. So who is the greatest? I often wonder about her dad, what he made of it all.
Who is the greatest? God’s grace transforms the lives of ordinary men and women into something extraordinary – spiritual masterpieces. In the fourteenth century Clare became one such masterpiece. There have been many others, before and after her. I think in more recent years of Carol Acutis, John Sullivan, Edith Stein – maybe people whose story we know and whose holiness is known only by God. People who constantly seek his face:
“It were my soul’s desire
To see the face of God;
It were my soul’s desire,
To rest in His abode”.
The Poor Clare’s whose presence among us stretches now to 131 years, constantly seek His face. While we ring their bell, knock on their door, scribble our intention, they are praying in quiet adoration, they are by their works seeking His face.
Carlow has a very proud place in the Poor Clare lineage. It was from Manchester that Carlow was founded in 1893 – Mother Mary Seraphine, the early Mother foundress. From Carlow, Donnybrook would emerge in 1906; Belfast was founded from Donnybrook in 1924. Cork was founded a little earlier in 1914, while the roots of Ennis were much later in 1958. The Poor Clare story in Galway predates Carlow by a few centuries to the 1640’s. Over all these years these Sisters and those before them have been seeking God’s face and answering that question: “Who is the greatest”?
Greatness does not depend on privilege or stature, but on putting aside pretentions and adopting the simplicity and defencelessness for instance of a little child. Jesus as shepherd always looks out for the stray, the forgotten, the little ones. The Poor Clare’s are known as Poor because they too are always on the look out for the stray, the forgotten, the abandoned.
As St. Clare says in her ‘Testament’: “Love one another with the charity of Christ, and let the love which you have in your hearts be shown outwardly by your deeds” . The Poor Clare’s in succession to St. Clare live this everyday and it is this we celebrate on this transferred feast day.
