A Community of Love, Unity and Service

St. Clare of Assisi

On Palm Sunday, March 19, 1212, a maiden eighteen years of age left her rich and noble family to retire for her reception as a religious to the little church of the Portiuncula. This maiden wasSaint Clare. Already she had learned from Saint Francis to scorn the world, and was secretlyresolved to live for God alone. There she was met by Saint Francis and his brethren, and at thealtar of Our Lady, Saint Francis cut off her hair, clothed her in the habit of penance, a piece ofsackcloth, with a cord as a cincture. Thus was she espoused to Christ. Saint Francis placed herfor the moment in a Benedictine convent.

It was in a tiny house outside Assisi that she founded her Order. Two weeks after Clare’s consecration, her sister Agnes left home secretly to go to join her, at the age of fourteen years. Agnes succeeded in her intention, despite their father’s strong opposition and a convoy of twelve men who attempted to take her back home by force. While Clare prayed in the convent, Agnesbecame so heavy they were unable to move her. Later their mother and other noble ladies joinedthem. They went barefoot, observed perpetual abstinence, constant silence, and perfect poverty.

Saint Clare is celebrated for a miracle which occurred when the Saracen army of Frederick II was ravaging the valley of Spoleto. A legion of infidels advanced to assault the convent outsideAssisi. The Saint, who was ill in the infirmary, rose and went, supported by her religious, to thedoor of the convent; there she had the Blessed Sacrament placed in a monstrance above the gateof the monastery facing the enemy. She knelt before it and prayed, “Deliver not to beasts, OLord, the souls of those who confess Your Name!” A voice from the Host replied, “Myprotection will never fail you.” A sudden panic seized the infidel army, which took flight; and theSaint’s convent was spared.

Although Saint Clare herself never left her monastery of Saint Damian, her Order spread in many places not only in Europe but elsewhere, and some four thousand convents, divided into severalbranches, shelter her disciples. Many Saints have come from these, especially from the groupswhich have maintained the original absolute poverty of her Constitutions. The Sisters of theoriginal Order live by charity, and their convents possess nothing. Saint Clare died in 1253, as thePassion was being read, and Our Lady and the Angels conducted her to glory.

St. Radegundes

Born in 519, Saint Radegundes was the daughter of a king of Thuringia who was assassinated byhis brother. A war ensued, and the little girl, at the age of twelve, was made prisoner and carriedaway captive by Clotaire, King of the Franks. He had her instructed in the Christian religion andbaptized. The great mysteries of our Faith made such an impression on her young and tender soulthat she gave herself to God with her whole heart, and desired to consecrate to Him her virginity. She was obliged, however, to yield to the king’s wish that she become his wife.

As a great queen, she continued to remain an enemy to laxity and vanity, and divided her timechiefly between her oratory, the Church, and her devoted care of the poor. She also kept longfasts, and during Lent wore a hair cloth under her rich garments. Clotaire was at first pleasedwith her devotions, and allowed her full liberty in them. Afterward, however, he began frequentlyto reproach her for her pious exercises, saying with some of her enemies at his court, that he hadmarried a nun rather than a queen, who had converted his court into a monastery. After six years,seeing that Clotaire was inflamed by bad passions, our Saint asked and obtained his leave to retirefrom court. She went to Noyon, where Saint Medard, its bishop, hesitated to receive from her aformal consecration and vows, despite the king’s permission. She herself therefore cut off herhair, and after donning the rough habit of the nuns, placed her royal ornaments on the altar. Finally she was consecrated to the Lord as a deaconess by Saint Medard.

After a pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint Martin of Tours, she lived at Chinon for a time as ahermit. She continued to care for the sick and for lepers, sometimes performing miracles. Then,at Poitiers, with the king’s consent, she built a large Monastery of the Holy Cross for women, anda church, with an adjoining monastery of monks for its maintenance. She named a holy virgin,Agnes, to be the first Abbess of her convent, and entering there herself, submitted to her in allthings with perfect obedience, not reserving to herself the disposal of the slightest thing. Shelived in extreme austerity and abstinence. She obtained from the emperor of Constantinople amajor relic of the true Cross, and many other relics of Saints for her monastery. The relic of theCross was the first to enter France, and it was then that the monastery received the name it hassince borne. During the Saint’s lifetime, her monastery followed the Rule of Saint Cesarius ofArles; some time after her death that of Saint Benedict was introduced and maintained.

King Clotaire, after repenting of his evil conduct, desired the Queen to return to his court, but through the intercession of Saint Germanus of Paris, she was allowed to remain in her retirementuntil her death. Clotaire died sometime before this holy spouse, who gave up her soul to God onthe 13^th of August, 587.

The Dormition of Mary

Father Bourdaloue, a famous preacher of the 17^th century French court, said in a sermon on the Assumption:

“Never was there a death more precious in the sight of God than that of the Virgin, because there was never a life more filled with merits than Hers. The death of the Blessed Virgin was precious not only by the merits which preceded it, but also by the graces and favors which accompanied it. But what made it precious in God’s sight is above all the dispositions of mind and heart withwhich She received it... What then was Her disposition of mind? She envisaged death in the lightof the purest faith, as the fulfillment of her wishes, as the means of being promptly reunited withHer Son and Her God, whose absence had for so long been a source of sorrow for Her. Herdisposition of heart? Seeing death in this light, She desired it with all the ardor of the mostfervent charity. Far more fervently than Saint Paul She longed to be disengaged from the bondsof the flesh, to live with Jesus Christ...”

The bishop of Meaux, Bossuet, preaches in the same vein: “If the great Apostle wants to break the bonds of the flesh to go to meet his Master at the Father’s right hand, what must theemotion of a maternal heart be? ... And what regret had the Virgin not experienced, seeingHerself separated for so long from a Son whom She loved as She alone could love? ... She prayed, ‘Ah, my Lord! permit my love to act! It will soon detach my soul from my mortal body,and transport me to You, in whom alone I live.’ If you believe me, holy souls, you will not laborlong to seek any other cause for Her death. This love, so ardent, so strong, so inflamed, couldnot utter a single sigh incapable of breaking all the bonds of that body; it did not send forth asingle desire to heaven which did not take with it the soul of Mary. Ah! I said earlier that thedeath of Mary was miraculous; now I speak a little differently, and say that it is not so much Herdeath that is a miracle; Her death is rather the cessation of a miracle. The continuous miracle wasthat Mary could live, separated from Her Beloved.”

We see from these texts why the departure of the soul of Our Lady is not termed a “death” like that of other mortals, but rather a “dormition” — a “falling asleep in the Lord”, as the early Christians called it. (Cf. Acts 7:60) All writers on the subject are unanimous — it was Her supreme love for God, nothing else, which was its cause. Tradition affirms that She knew in advance that Her departure was at hand, and prepared with incredible fervor for the holy moment, when She would hear the voice of Her Son say: “Come to Your eternal repose, O blessed Mother: arise and come, You who are My Heart’s friend, the most beautiful of women. The winter is over, the springtime begins; come, My all-beautiful one, My beloved; there is no stain in You; I prefer Your perfumes to all others.”

St. Eusebius, martyr

The Church celebrates on this day the memory of Saint Eusebius, who among the Christians of his time distinguished himself by his spirit of prayer and his apostolic virtues. When he wasarraigned, Maxentius, the governor of the Province, interrogated him and was furious at theSaint’s constancy while he was placed on the rack and his sides were torn with iron hooks. Hesentenced him to die by fire at the stake; but his unusual serenity when going to the place ofexecution caused him to be summoned back to the tribunal, obviously by a particular dispositionof Providence.

The Emperor himself being in the region, the governor went to him and told him the prisonerasked to be taken before him. The reason for this request was that there had not been any recentedicts published against the Christians. Saint Eusebius was advanced in age, and the emperorMaximian said, after questioning him, “What harm is there that this man should adore the God hetalks of as superior to all the others?” But the brutal Maxentius would not listen, and, like Pilatefacing Christ, the Emperor told the persecutors of the accused man to judge the affair themselves. Maxentius therefore sentenced him to be decapitated. Eusebius, hearing the sentence, said aloud,“I thank Your goodness and praise Your power, O Lord Jesus Christ, because in calling me toprove my fidelity, You have treated me as one of Yours.” His martyrdom occurred towards theend of the third century.

St. Maximilian Kolbe

The Knight of the Immaculate Virgin was born in Poland in 1894, and was a mischievous littleboy. One day his mother, no longer knowing what to do with him, said to him: “My child, whatwill become of you?” He was suddenly afraid and went to pray before a statue of His heavenlyMother — for this was an exceptionally pious family, all of whose living members becamereligious, including, eventually, the parents. He was transformed that day into a new person,having asked Her to help him correct his faults.

When his parents separated to enter religion, he, too, entered a Franciscan novitiate, and was ordained in 1918 on April 28^th, feast of the Marian apostle, Saint Louis Mary de Montfort. Already the great all-embracing idea of his life had come to him, a year earlier — a militia inhonor of the Virgin destined to crush the head of the ancient serpent, master of pride and revolt. There should be an army at Her disposition, he was certain, and then She Herself could do allthrough its well-disciplined ranks. He found willing collaborators — a small group at first —ready to consecrate themselves to Her forever, for the fulfillment of Her desires.

They founded a magazine, invoking the special assistance of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux also, and the prodigious growth of this enterprise left those who could not understand its heavenly Sources mystified and sometimes very much contradicted. Soon the walls were cracking, so to speak, bythe arrival of printing presses and, above all, religious vocations. The group of volunteers for theproject had to leave, and Our Lady procured for them a terrain, without charge. As a result, “TheCity of the Immaculate” was organized, where some 50 low buildings were set up and mobilizedfor the various facets not only of publishing, but of the Franciscan life of prayer.

Father Kolbe, despite a health which was never other than precarious — for he was undermined by tuberculosis for long years, and virtually abandoned at one time as incurable — traveled both to Japan and to India to extend the militia to other lands where the Mother of God was sorelyneeded. Always She revealed Her protective Presence, accompanied by abundant blessings. TheFounder of these holy residences said, “The more souls there will be, totally given to the guidanceof the Immaculate, the more Saints there will be, and very great Saints. Sanctity is not a luxury,but a simple duty, since Our Lord said, ‘Be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.’” He gavethem as a formula, “w=W” — signifying the human will perfectly united and equivalent, through Her, to the Will of God. He said to them, “Our sanctification is Her affair and Her specialty, since we belong unconditionally to Her.”

The martyrdom of Father Kolbe in the “hunger bunker” of Auschwitz is well known. The City of the Immaculate was closed after the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, and he was placedsuccessively in two concentration camps, where the most cruel treatment could not alter his calm. He brought light to the despairing and renewed the faith of all with whom he came into contact. He was the last to die of the ten men condemned to the “bunker” to pay for the escape of aninmate of their dormitory. A guard found him alone still alive, on August 14, 1941 after fourteendays, seated in a corner in total deprivation, still praying. He stretched out his fleshless arm to thejailers who had come to finish him off with a hypodermic syringe. His expression in death wasdescribed as ecstatic; he was gazing upward, as if to welcome the One he saw coming for his soul.

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