In every church he visited Francis prayed: “We adore You, Lord Jesus Christ, in all Your churches throughout the world, and we bless You, because by Your holy cross You have redeemed the world!” St. Clare followed this intense desire for oneness with the sacrament of the Eucharist. As witnesses of Christ’s abiding presence, the Poor Ladies nurtured the feeble faith of commoners, nobles, and outcasts alike. Clare urged her companions to discover the fullness of love by basking in divine light and to become living icons of God.
St. Clare of Assisi does not give us a set of prayers that she created, but in her writings we discover her spirituality and her path to God. She invites us to gaze, consider, contemplate, and imitate Christ. Clare gazes on all of creation because it has the potential to speak to her of God. She considers the experiences of her life in the light of the Gospels. She contemplates the crucified and glorified Christ and opens herself to be transformed by the Divine One who loves her. She deeply desires to imitate the One she loves to become the image of the Word of Love.
—from the book Eucharistic Adoration: Reflections in the Franciscan Tradition
by the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration
