The St. Clare Prayer Book: Listening for God's Leading
()
About this ebook
Jon M. Sweeney
JON M. SWEENEY is an independent scholar and an award-winning writer. He is a biographer of St. Francis of Assisi and translator of his writings, and his books on Franciscan subjects have sold more than two hundred thousand copies. Jon is the author of more than forty books, including The Pope Who Quit, which was optioned by HBO. He edits the magazine Living City, and is religion editor/associate publisher of Monkfish Publishing in Rhinebeck, NY. He’s appeared on CBS Saturday Morning and numerous other programs, and writes regularly for America magazine in the US, and The Tablet in the UK. Jon is married to Rabbi Michal Woll; their interfaith marriage has been profiled in national media. He's the father of four, and lives in Milwaukee.
Read more from Jon M. Sweeney
Meister Eckhart's Book of the Heart: Meditations for the Restless Soul Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMeister Eckhart's Book of Darkness & Light: Meditations on the Path of the Wayless Way Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMeister Eckhart's Book of Secrets: Meditations on Letting Go and Finding True Freedom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Thomas Merton: An Introduction to His Life, Teachings, and Practices Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Flee, Be Silent, Pray: Ancient Prayers for Anxious Christians Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cloister Talks: Learning from My Friends the Monks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When Saint Francis Saved the Church: How a Converted Medieval Troubadour Created a Spiritual Vision for the Ages Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPhyllis Tickle: A Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Religion of Man: International Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Life in Seventeen Books: A Literary Memoir Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Little Flowers of Saint Francis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Enthusiast: How the Best Friend of Francis of Assisi Almost Destroyed What He Started Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Praying with Our Hands: 21 Practices of Embodied Prayer from the World's Spiritual Traditions Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Road to Assisi: The Essential Biography of St. Francis - 120th Anniversary Edition Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Phyllis Tickle: Evangelist of the Future Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/53000 Miles to Jesus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life for Spiritual Seekers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Road to Siena: The Essential Biography of St. Catherine Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The St. Francis Prayer Book: A Guide to Deepen Your Spiritual Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Francis of Assisi: His Life, The Complete Writings, and The Little Flowers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSt. Francis and the Christian Life: A Disorderly Parable of the Epistle to the Galatians Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrancis and Clare: A True Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPraying with the Saints Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLord, Make Me An Instrument of Your Peace: The Complete Prayers of St. Francis, St. Clare, & other early Franciscans Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe St. Francis Holy Fool Prayer Book Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The St. Clare Prayer Book
Related ebooks
Katharine Drexel: The Riches-to-Rags Life Story of an American Catholic Saint Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrancis and Clare: A True Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChastity, Poverty and Obedience: Recovering the Vision for the Renewal of the Religious Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClare: Her Light and Her Song Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVisionary Women: Three Medieval Mystics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Church Mothers, Letters from Leaders at Crossroads in History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReflections during Advent: Dorothy Day on Prayer, Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWritings of Teresa of Avila (Annotated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrancis de Sales and Jane de Chantal: Saints by Our Side Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTroubadour of the Kingdom: The Life and Times of J. Rufus Moseley, 1870–1954 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeing Franciscan: Living the Tradition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Cappadocian Mothers: Deification Exemplified in the Writings of Basil, Gregory, and Gregory Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mystery of Christian Marriage through the Ages: The Scriptures and the First Thousand Years Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWomen and the Kingdom Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSaint Charles de Foucauld: His Life and Spirituality Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSet Your Heart Free: 30 Days with Francis de Sales Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Women, Men, and Spiritual Power: Female Saints and Their Male Collaborators Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPointers to Eternity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lent Factor: Forty Companions for the Forty Days of Lent: The Mowbray Lent Book 2015 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5St. Teresa of Avila: Her Life in Letters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInterior Castle: The Classic Text with a Spiritual Commentary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Life Is Love: The Quaker Spiritual Journey Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Ecclesiology of St. Basil the Great: A Trinitarian Approach to the Life of the Church Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhere Is the Church?: Martyrdom, Persecution, and Baptism in North Africa from the Second to the Fifth Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings5 Puritan Women: Portraits of Faith and Love Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRighteous Content: Black Women's Perspectives of Church and Faith Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMission of Grace: The Story of Saint Marianne Cope Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsExtraordinary Women of Christian History: What We Can Learn from Their Struggles and Triumphs Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Saint Clare of Assisi Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Christianity For You
Boundaries Updated and Expanded Edition: When to Say Yes, How to Say No To Take Control of Your Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Law of Connection: Lesson 10 from The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Decluttering at the Speed of Life: Winning Your Never-Ending Battle with Stuff Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mere Christianity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Four Loves Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Winning the War in Your Mind: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are so You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Good Boundaries and Goodbyes: Loving Others Without Losing the Best of Who You Are Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Changes That Heal: Four Practical Steps to a Happier, Healthier You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Screwtape Letters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Boundaries Workbook: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex: Creating a Marriage That's Both Holy and Hot Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Enoch Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wild at Heart Expanded Edition: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Story: The Bible as One Continuing Story of God and His People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5NIV, Holy Bible Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Boundaries with Kids: How Healthy Choices Grow Healthy Children Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Stories We Tell: Every Piece of Your Story Matters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Undistracted: Capture Your Purpose. Rediscover Your Joy. Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I'll Start Again Monday: Break the Cycle of Unhealthy Eating Habits with Lasting Spiritual Satisfaction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The St. Clare Prayer Book
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The St. Clare Prayer Book - Jon M. Sweeney
THE ST. CLARE PRAYER BOOK
The St. Clare Prayer Book: Listening for God’s Leading
2007 First Printing
Copyright © 2007 by Jon M. Sweeney
ISBN 13: 978-1-55725-504-4
Scripture quotations designated NJB are taken from the New Jerusalem Bible, published and copyright © 1985 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd. and Doubleday, a division of Random House Inc., and used by permission of the publishers.
Scripture quotations designated NRSV are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America, and are used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations designated REB are taken from the Revised English Bible, copyright © Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press 1989, and are used by permission.
Scripture translations used are as follows unless noted in the Scripture reference: Gospels—NJB; Psalms—The Book of Common Prayer (1979); Songs, Canticles, and Epistles from the Old and New Testaments—NRSV and REB.
Library of Congress Cataloging–in–Publication Data
Sweeney, Jon M., 1967-
The St. Clare prayer book : listening for God’s leading / by Jon M. Sweeney.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-55725-513-6
1. Clare, of Assisi, Saint, 1194-1253. 2. Meditations.
3. Prayers. I. Title.
BX4700.C6S94 2007
242’.802--dc222006031318
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in an electronic retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Published by Paraclete Press
Brewster, Massachusetts
www.paracletepress.com
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
I
THE PRAYER LIFE OF ST. CLARE OF ASSISI
St. Clare and St. Francis Side by Side
St. Clare’s Life of Prayer
The Foundation for St. Clare’s Prayers
Above All, Jesus
The Wisdom of Meditation
The Power of Intercession
II
PRAYING ALONGSIDE ST. CLARE
Praying with the Prophets
Praying with the Psalms
Praying with the Gospels
Praying with St. Paul
Morning and Evening Prayer
AN INTRODUCTION
Seven Themes for Seven Days
The Daily Office for Sunday through Saturday
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
III
OCCASIONAL PRAYERS OF ST. CLARE
On the Lovelines of Christ
On Faithfulness to Ideals
Three More Collects for Faithfulness
The Office of the Five Wounds of Christ
For an Increase in Franciscan Spiritual Values
Clare’s Blessings
From Clare’s Final Words
IV
OTHER PRAYERS
Devotion to the Virgin Mary
Francis’s Psalm for Those Who Have Gone Before Us
Francis’s Canticle of the Creatures
Short prayer poems of Jacopone of Todi
The Lord’s Prayer in Early Franciscan Tradition
The Lord’s Prayer
[FRANCIS’S EXPANDED VERSION]
V
APPENDICES
A Very Brief Life of St. Agnes of Rome
Sister Clare by Laurence Housman
INDEX OF NAMES, SUBJECTS, AND SCRIPTURES
NOTES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I
THE PRAYER LIFE
of
St. Clare of Assisi
BY ALL ACCOUNTS, she was an attractive and lively girl, smart and strong-willed. Her conversion to religious life culminated one night as she snuck away from her parents’ home on the eastern edge of Assisi and joined St. Francis and the friars at Portiuncula, a tiny chapel, down in the valley below town. She was eighteen years old and had spent several years questioning her family’s ideas of who she should marry and who she would become. She chose to run away—and run toward—the enigmatic Francis, who had upset the town several years before with his similar conversion.
But just as St. Clare began her religious life dramatically, the next four plus decades saw her spend most of her time in prayer. She was like a mother to her sisters, counseling them on why and how to pray, and helping them with their questions about the spiritual life. She possessed a quiet power that was respected by all who came to know her. She communicated often with popes, cardinals, and women and men around Europe about what it means to be Christian. Clare of Assisi was the most important woman of her day, even though she spent most of her life behind bars.
The bars were known as a grille, which separated St. Clare and her sisters both symbolically and physically from all visitors who would come to their little convent just outside Assisi. Even the priest who would hear their confessions and administer the sacraments was separated by the grille from the Poor Clares.
It is behind that grille that St. Clare found her true freedom in Christ—a freedom to explore a relationship with God that was unencumbered by societal expectations. She used prayer books, and she memorized many of her prayers. The little book you hold in your hands would probably embarrass her, but she would also understand exactly how to use it.
We pick up prayer books when we realize that we need something to stimulate our devotion to God. For many of us, prayer is our lifeboat, but we still find ourselves treading water from time to time. The unique vision and spiritual depth of St. Clare’s prayers and prayer life will open for you new opportunities and paths for knowing God.
St. Clare’s prayers are very rarely collected in books. She is often overshadowed by her more famous friend and mentor, St. Francis. Evelyn Underhill once referred to Clare as the hidden spring
of Franciscan spirituality, an apt description because Clare’s wisdom was a spring for Francis and the first generation of Franciscans. It is only in recent years that we have come to discover it.
St. Clare is a different sort of saint from the ones we may be accustomed to spending time with. Her life and spirituality bring to a life of faith something different that is both relevant today and unique among her more famous contemporaries.
By outward appearances, her life was drab compared to the colorful lives of such women as Catherine of Siena and Hildegard of Bingen. Catherine scolded popes and emperors, and Hildegard composed mystical music and theological texts. Both women had a wide range of interests and influence in the world of politics and power, in contrast to Clare, whose life was mostly hidden except to her spiritual brothers and sisters.
St. Clare’s stature has also been hampered by the pious descriptions that grew up around her legends. This began with the biography that Thomas of Celano wrote just after her death as part of the process of canonizing her. Every writer since the 1250s has had to make decisions about what is history in Thomas’s accounts and what is simply good storytelling in the life of a saint. Many misinterpretations have persisted through the centuries, and sometimes writers have made her sound so pure as to become more angelic than human.
For example, in the early twentieth century, Father Cuthbert wrote these saccharine sentences in his study of St. Clare: One must be grossly lacking in spiritual perception not to recognize in the story of her life … the pure spirituality which was the atmosphere in which her mind and heart had their being. In her it is evident no ordinary earthliness found place, but all was consecrated by a purity staid with the constant vision and love of the heavenly life.
He would like us to believe that Clare never faced temptation, never doubted her vocation, and that human emotions such as anger, frustration, boredom, and sadness failed to affect her prayer life. The opposite was true, and that is why Clare speaks so profoundly to us today.
Twenty-seven years separated St. Francis’s and St. Clare’s deaths. In other words, she had better than a quarter century to live out the ideals of Francis in her own ways. The two great saints of Assisi shared much in common: They each began their religious lives with dramatic gestures of separation from worldly values and self-conscious identification with the person of Christ—but Clare’s subsequent spirituality became strong, wise, and quiet in ways that differentiate her from her mentor. Where Francis usually sought to jolt people into understanding truth directly and experientially, Clare grew slowly and deeply into wisdom. As a result, it takes more time and patience to learn from Clare than it does from Francis.
St. Clare and her first sisters in religious life were bound by the traditional vow of stability, and in contrast to Francis and the first friars, stability meant a cloistered life. The life of Clare was completely centered in a small community of women in the former Assisan church of San Damiano. For forty-one years, Clare lived almost every moment of life within the walls of that church-turned-leper hospital-turned-monastery. The prospect of such a circumspect existence has caused one writer to recently refer to San Damiano as "Clare’s Prison." But it wasn’t so.
Despite society’s ideas about the roles of women, who were seen as the second sex,
inferior to men, St. Clare formed