Tuesday 11th August 2020 is the feast of St Clare. (1193 – 1253).

Ezekiel’s experience of eating the scroll tells us how we should relate with God’s word. The word of God that we hear should go through us just as food goes through the digestive system. God requires that we hunger for it like food, masticate it through meditation, digest it and assimilate it so that it becomes part of our being. God’s word strengthens our resolve to live in obedience to God, and it empowers us to proclaim it to others from the depth of our being through a faith-filled life. Today’s Gospel tells us that only the word of God can show us the way to true greatness, which is the way of childlike simplicity and humility.

Children” before God (divine filiation)

Today, we wonder what it means “to be children”, which Jesus considers such an absolute necessity. According to Jesus Christ, to be children means learning to say “Father”. Man wants to be God and, giving this expression its correct sense, he should eventually reach out to God. To understand the huge force this word implies, it is necessary to read it with the perception of Jesus, the Son.

But when man chooses to be like God, while emancipating himself from God and rebelling against his status as a creature, putting himself above everything else and focusing on himself —as in the eternal dialogue with the serpent in the earthly Paradise— then he just ends with nothing, because he puts himself against his same truth, which means referring everything to God.

St Clare. (1193 – 1253). Italian.

At 18, Clare was not only beautiful but her parents were very wealthy. She gave up everything to follow the original Little One, Jesus Christ our Savior. Imitating St Francis of Assisi, the little poor man of Assisi, Clare embraced radical poverty. She founded the Poor Clares and modeled its constitution from what she learned from St Francis of Assisi.

I know one Poor Clare Nun, who made a great contribution to the world. Mother Angelica (+ 2016). She founded EWTN which is the only global Catholic Television Network in the world.