Friar Steve Kluge OFM Blesses Sister Mary McCourt's Grave Stone

Friar Steve Kluge
 from Brant Beach, NJ, blessed our Sister Mary McCourt's grave stone on March 27, 2012.
Each Sister blessed the grave and stone with Holy Water as we prayed and sang a hymn.
May our sister Mary rest in peace and experience her first Easter with the Lord, face to face.

Friar Steve Kluge OFM Gives Lenten Reflections to the Poor Clares at Chesterfield Monastery

March 27

The Eighth Centenary of the Beginning of the Poor Clare Form of Life

Prayer to Saint Clare for the 800th Anniversary

O God through the preaching of Saint Francis,

Your daughter Saint Clare,

a radiant light

and shining splendor

to the world,

and  a woman of noble birth,

left all to embrace a life

of total poverty.

Trusting solely in the

generosity of others

and of Divine  Providence,

she and her followers

found happiness in austerity.

Bless all women

throughout the world

who have embraced her spirit

and form of life for 800 years.

Let us continue to be a sign

of Your loving care.

As we follow the gospel, may we know

the gifts of holy unity,

highest poverty and

true simplicity.

We ask this in the name of Jesus, Your Son,

who first showed us the way,

and now lives with You and

the Holy Spirit,

world without end.

Amen

The first Monastery of the Poor Clares , San Damiano

 found by Saint Clare in 1212

800 years ago in

Assisi, Italy

We Are Still in Lent - New Life Begins Each Day

The sentence ,We Are Still in Lent, may be taken two ways.  In time and in what we all desire to be and to do in Lent, Be still and know the Lord.   The Real ity Check however  is that we get busy  in our daily round and revert back to the daily grind of just getting things done. There is Hope,though,  as we ride off into the sunset. God is ever rich in Mercy and in Kindness.  God knows of what we are made and gives us His love and Grace to accomplish the journey successfully.  We walk to God by our human acts and the secret of each of our choices in all of this, is to make our free choices  help us on our journey.  But we are never alone.    When we fall, and we will fall  as sure as day follows the night, we have a wonderful support system to help us on the way..We have God, His Grace and the support of our human community.   So let us rise and began again because up to now we have done nothing. Words of St. Francis of Assisi.

800 Celebration of the Beginning of the Order of Poor Clares

On the night of Palm Sunday of 1211 (or 1212 according to some), a young noble woman of Assisi fled from her paternal home in order to reach clandestinely the little Church of the Porziuncula in Assisi, where Francis and his Friars lived. She desired to follow his evangelical ideal and with her newly received tonsure, she embarked on a life of penance and consecration which, at the time, was unusual and original. According to the sources in hand, the beginning of the conversion of Clare of Assisi is known based on this episode. Her period of penance will first begin at the Monastery of the Benedictine Sisters of St. Paul, then at the Church of Sant’Angelo of Panzo, and lastly at the Church of San Damiano of Assisi. It was here that Clare began receiving different young women of the area and soon after from different social background and from all over the continent. Noteworthy is the originality of the evangelical intuition of St. Clare and the fact that she was the first medieval woman to draw up a rule for women, thus giving rise to a movement of extraordinary importance for the life of both the Church and the world.
We are now in the happy circumstance of celebrating 800 yrs of the founding of the Order of St. Clare. We want to celebrate the Spirit of St. Clare –which St. Agnes of Bohemia wrote to be kept always before the eyes as a point of departure (2Lag 11) – by recalling the beginning of our time of conversion and the need of living in a constant struggle toward holiness.
                               from the Communication's Office in Rome