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  NINE

          In the Eucharistic Liturgy every form of prayer is found and fed.  Here we "gather up" the heart, recollecting our whole being under the prompting of the Holy Spirit.  (CATECHISM 2711)  Here we unite ourselves to Christ as He offers perfect praise and thanksgiving to the Father.  Here the Good Seed of the Word is lavishly sown.  The Eucharist is the food of faith which strengthens us for the spiritual combat.  In the Eucharist, communion with God becomes a reality cherished in adoring silence.  (Pope John Paul II)  Is it any wonder that the Seraphic Mother did all she could to foster devotion to the Eucharistic mystery?

          In her Rule, St. Clare asks that her monasteries be provided with a resident-chaplain, so that the Sisters may be able to attend Holy Mass each day.  (Rule of St. Clare, 12)  Likewise, she makes provision for the chaplain to enter the enclosure to celebrate Mass and to Communion to the Sisters in good health or to the sick.  (ch. 3)  St. Clare encouraged the Sisters to cultivate silence as a means of recollection  (ch. 5)   and also specified that they should engage in work that does not extinguish the spirit of holy prayer and dedication  (ch. 7), so that they may be better prepared to celebrate the sacred mysteries with attention, reverence and devotion.

          St. Clare provided not only written legislation but also a living example of devotion to every part of the Eucharistic Liturgy.  She listened to sermons on the Word of God with attentive faith:  When she heard holy preaching, she was filled with so much joy and delight at the mention of her Jesus... (She believed) that the kernel of doctrine lies within the shell of words... and she knew how to derive from any sermon what would benefit the soul.  (Legend of St. Clare, 37)  Likewise, St. Clare's praying of the Psalms and of the Our Father reached a high point during the Eucharistic Liturgy.

          For Clare of Assisi, the words of the Mass liturgy were not mere formulas, but a vibrant expression of and assent to the mysteries they represented.  Clare's contemplative spirituality can be summarized in two words:  Sursum corda!  Clare was a woman with a "lifted heart," a heart ceaselessly raised to God in a radical self-emptying patterned after that of His beloved Son.  If you suffer with Him, you shall reign with Him; if you weep with Him, you shall rejoice with Him.  If you die with Him on the cross of sorrow, you shall possess heavenly mansions in the brightness of the saints.  (2nd Letter of St. Clare to Agnes of Prague)  At each Holy Communion, her Sisters witnessed the Seraphic Mother's ardent love of Jesus in the Eucharist:  When she was to receive the Body of the Lord, she shed burning tears and would approach with awe, for she feared Him no less hidden in the Sacrament than ruling heaven and earth.  (Legend of St. Clare, 28)

          Near this Fountain of living water Clare's whole life became a Eucharist because from her cloister she raised up a continual "thanksgiving" to God in her prayer, praise, supplication, intercession, weeping, offering and sacrifice.  She accepted everything and offered it to the Father in union with the infinite "thanks" of the only-begotten Son.  (Pope John Paul II)  To all who enter the garden of prayer, the Lady Clare issues the same invitation:  Come to the water!  Learn here that if we thirst for God, it is because He has first thirsted for us.  The garden of prayer is the garden of God where prayer is a response of love to the thirst of the only Son of God.  (CATECHISM 2561)