| Behold
Him
Part 9 Crucified
for us sinners
Love God from the depths of your
heart, |
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In beholding JESUS,
crucified for us sinners, Clare of Assisi gazed on the summit of all
virtues: love, patience, poverty, obedience, humility, self-sacrifice,
meekness, generosity, kindness, abandonment.
The Cross was the
focal point for Clare’s imitation of Christ.
Beholding JESUS, crucified
for us sinners, increased the ardor of Clare’s sisterly love, as
she plumbed the depths of the ineffable charity of the One who for our
salvation emptied Himself even to death on the Cross.
Beholding JESUS, crucified
for us sinners, expanded her awareness of the reality of sin.
The fruit of Clare’s gazing upon Christ Crucified was an
intensification of her spirit of compunction, manifested in her ardent
prayer and unceasing penance for the conversion of sinners.
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Beholding JESUS, crucified for us sinners, enabled St. Clare to enter into the
mystery of holy compassion and take her place at the foot of every
cross, wherever Christ was suffering in one of the members of His
Mystical Body.
Beholding JESUS,
crucified for us sinners, raised the Seraphic Mother to the heights
of mystical love, as the Cross became for her the sign of life and healing, the sign of joy
and unspeakable delight. (I. Brady)
Her sublime and steadfast gazing on the Word made flesh also made
St. Clare more tender and loving towards those with whom she lived.
How can we reach the heights of beholding JESUS,
crucified for us sinners? And where does this holy beholding lead
us?
The Seraphic Mother gives us the answer.
As we BEHOLD JESUS,
crucified for us sinners, we must also cultivate a deep desire to
IMITATE HIM. We need to see
with the eyes of faith that every event in life offers us the
opportunity to unite ourselves with Jesus,
crucified for us sinners, recalling St. Clare’s assurance that
if
you suffer with Him, you will reign with Him.
If you weep with Him, you will rejoice with Him; if you die with
Him on the cross of tribulations, you shall possess heavenly mansions in
the splendor of the saints.
Gazing upon
Jesus Crucified, St. Clare discovered that His sorrows, pains and
sufferings had become her sorrows, pains and sufferings.
She also found that her weaknesses, infirmities and sufferings
had been taken up into His perfect sacrifice.
And she tells us where this imitating, suffering, weeping and
spiritual dying will lead:
Because
of this you shall share always and forever in the glory of the kingdom
of heaven, in everlasting treasures instead of those that perish, and
you shall live forever. Poor
Clare Monastery of Our Lady of Mercy |
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