Blessed Feast of our Mother St. Clare!

 

An excerpt from the homily of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVII, on the occasion of the 750^th anniversary of the death of St. Clare

 

The Book of Exodus recounts that the father-in-law of Moses visits him in the desert and sees how his famous son-in-law is occupied the whole day in hearing the little disputes, all the little and great difficulties of the people and he does not succeed in resolving the cases, the crowd is not content and he himself wastes time.  The father-in-law says to him:  “You are doing a foolish thing, such that you cannot continue: you are wasting your time and you cannot create the necessary order for your people.  You must create structures of responsibility and delegate”  Saint Bernard, a friend of the Pope of his time, meditated upon this text and wrote to the Pope, who was very involved in political power games and so occupied with these political affairs that he could no longer proclaim the Gospel.  Writes Bernard to this Pope:  “you are doing a foolish thing, you are wasting your time and it is thus possible to lose even the soul.”  We bishops and priests of today hope to do much useful work, but this is not to deny that we also are involved in so many other things that we also often are doing a foolish thing and so we too entrust to you, dear Sisters, our souls, we entrust them to your prayers.  And at this point I understand an important passage of Saint Clare in her third letter to Saint Agnes:  “I esteem you as a collaborator of God himself and a support of the weak and vacillating members of his ineffable body”.  We, dear Sisters, consider you as collaborators of God himself and a support of us weak and vacillating members of the ineffable body of Christ.  There comes to my mind also this other image in which the whole life, the mission of Saint Clare shines forth, that in which with the monstrance she drives away the Saracens, with the power of prayer, the power of the presence of Christ.  Even today Saracens are found in our world in another way, or, to speak as the Fathers with a word from the Song of Songs, “foxes in the vineyard of God”, and to drive them away, to overcome them, decrees and documents, while important, are not enough.  Only the power of prayer, the presence of Christ loved and adored can these problems be overcome.  We thank the Lord for the great gift to the Church that he has made with the charism of Saint Clare and with the community which now lives, which lives with us, and we pay that all of us can work for the increase of the heavenly city, to build together the Church of living stones. Amen