THE RECEIVER OF DIVINE GIFTS

SAINT CLARE, VIRGIN

Ezek 2:8-3:4; Ps 119:14,24,72,103,111,131; Mt 18:12-14

Receiving from God the Father

We reflected on the virtue of giving ourselves to the Father without fear or worries as a sign of maturity in Christian faith. The same virtue has its other side, which is receiving all that the Father sends to us daily joyfully. This virtue corresponds to the virtue of giving as the other side of the same coin. We must understand that we are not the first act in this regard when it comes to the exercise of these virtues. We are rather cooperators with God. God acts on us first, thereby enabling us to cooperate with his grace, which he gives us in Jesus Christ. God acts on us, both in prayer and in our meditations on his words, to fill us with his grace, which is his presence in us to accomplish his divine will. Jesus Christ is the source of all the graces we need to accomplish the Father’s will. He also reveals the divine will to us. By his Incarnation, he revealed the Father’s will to us and also made his divinity or divine life available to us, to cooperate with the Holy Spirit that is now dwelling within us. As we reflected on Sunday, the people before Christ, the Israelites, had the revelation of the Law, but no divine life or grace to accomplish the will of the Father. We praise Our Saviour, Jesus Christ, who, by giving us his divine life, has enabled us to cooperate with divine will. But to receive, we must empty ourselves.

God’s gift of his word is dramatically illustrated in the reading from the Prophet Ezekiel. The sweetness and bitterness of the scroll from God indicate the life and death that come from embracing the will of the Father. “’You, son of man, listen to the words I say; do not be a rebel like that rebellious set. Open your mouth and eat what I am about to give you.’ I looked. A hand was there, stretching out to me and holding a scroll. He unrolled it in front of me; it was written on back and front; on it was written ‘lamentations, wailings, moaning.’” The revelation of the will of God is never to the taste of our fallen nature. It gives us new spiritual life, which blossoms as we obey and cooperate with God in all things. We gradually become witnesses of God to the people when we die to self and abandon our own wills to do God’s. Thus, God says to the Prophet: “Son of man, eat what is given to you; eat this scroll, then go and speak to the House of Israel.’ I opened my mouth; he gave me the scroll to eat and said, ‘Son of man, feed and be satisfied by the scroll I am giving you.’ I ate it, and it tasted sweet as honey.” The knowing and doing of the Father’s will renew us deeply and spiritually, for we are made for that purpose. Thus, the Psalmist says: “I rejoiced to do your will as though all riches were mine. Your will is my delight; your statutes are my counsellors.”

We remain spiritually youthful when we feed on the word of God and desire to fulfil his will when it is revealed to us. The eagerness to know the will of the Father and to accomplish it makes us angels before his divine Majesty; even more than that, it transforms us into sons in the Son. The doing of the will of the Father was food for the Son of Man. Our Lord describes all who are eager to do the will of the Father as children to be among the greatest in heaven in answer to the apostles’ question on the greatest in heaven. “So he called a little child to him and set the child in front of them. Then he said, ‘I tell you solemnly, unless you change and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” We celebrate Saint Clare of Assisi for her greatness in heaven. She was born at Assisi and came under the influence of Saint Francis. She followed him at the age of 18, abandoned her wealthy family in pursuit of heavenly wealth, and the kingdom. She established a community of women that became the order of Poor Clares, which also received her sister and widowed mother. Their attachment to poverty made the Rule of the order more severe than that of any other order of nuns. Clare was noted for her contemplative spirit and loving care as the mother of her nuns. She died at Assisi in 1253. May her motherly prayers obtain for us the grace to always joyfully receive all from the providence of God the Father.

Let us pray: O God, who in your mercy led Saint Clare to a love of poverty, grant, through her intercession, that, following Christ in poverty of spirit, we may merit to contemplate you one day in the heavenly Kingdom. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.