St. Clare of Assisi
  Our Guide to the Garden of Prayer

Prayer is like a secret garden,
made up of silence and rest and inwardness.
                                        -  Jean Vanier

PART  EIGHT

          Adore Him!  this was the cry of St. Francis, exhorting followers to put first things first.  Adoration is the first act of the virtue of religion.  (CATECHISM 2096)  Adoration is the first attitude of man acknowledging that he is a creature before his Creator.  (CATECHISM 2628)  St. Clare, by her unceasing adoration of God, fulfilled to the highest degree the First Commandment of the Lord:  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind, making it the full meaning of her life and loving God in all the brothers and sisters.  (Verbi Sponsa, 5)

          Adore Him!  With a simple prayer of adoration, St. Francis and his friars helped to spark the Eucharistic revival that spread throughout 13th century Europe.  Through a simple life of prayer and adoration, St. Clare and her daughters give a shining witness to every century of what it means to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth.  They show that adoration of God sets man free from turning in on himself,  from the slavery of sin and the idolatry of the world.  (CATECHISM 2097)  The Lady Clare's garden of prayer was replete with invitations to adore the only God, living and true, to enter through Christ into the ineffable circuit of Trinitarian love.  (Pope John Paul II)

          It is from this circuit of divine Life and Love that St. Clare's contemplative prayer flourished.  The CATECHISM offers many descriptions of contemplative prayer: the prayer of the child of God; the poor and humble surrender to the loving will of the Father; the simplest expression of the mystery of prayer: a gift; a grace; a gaze of faith; silent love. (cf. CATECHISM 2709-2718)  St. Clare was called to this better part, the contemplative experience which made of her life, of her hours of prayer as of her hours of work, of her hours of joy as of her hours of suffering, a continual contemplative search for God, a humble, hidden, assiduous experience of love...  Contemplation is a limitless opening to the Spirit of the Lord for the sake of the Church and the world.  (Sr. C.A. Lainati, O.S.C.)

           But is this all beyond the reach of the ordinary Christian?  No, declares the Church, which reminds the faithful that by our Baptismal consecration a call is addressed to every Christian to enter a grace-filled encounter with God in prayer.  (Verbi Sponsa, 2)  The Lady Clare offers some very simple directions to help in the Christian's contemplative quest:  Behold Him!  Consider Him!  Contemplate Him!  Desire to imitate Him!  (2nd Letter of St. Clare to St. Agnes of Prague).   Each of these prayer steps is a summons to draw close to Christ, the Son of God who became our way - our way of life, but also our way of prayer.  (cf.Testament of St. Clare)

          St. Clare's final prayer step is vitally important.  Desire to imitate Him!  Growth in prayer is always accompanied by an increase of love of God and of neighbor.  Lack of charity prevents growth in prayer.  "check your charity," was St. Teresa's unfailing test for the veracity of a prayer experience.  Desire to imitate Him is St. Clare's unflagging reminder that contemplative prayer does not shut us up in an ivory tower, but opens us to the needs of those around us.  Imitating the God who is Love, our contemplative prayer becomes a communion of love bearing Life for the multitude.  (CATECHISM 2719)