In her second letter to Agnes of Prague, St. Clare advises her:
Look upon Him who became contemptible for you,
and follow Him, making yourself contemptible in this world for Him.
Most noble Queen,
gaze,
consider,
contemplate
desiring to imitate Your Spouse.
An adaptation of Clare’s words, Gaze upon Christ, Consider Christ, Contemplate Christ, can be a Franciscan mantra for those wishing to draw closer to God in contemplative prayer. A friar once suggested that a singular gift of Francis and Clare to the Church was a new vision of contemplation, a departure from the monastic tradition where monks directed their vision upward, toward heaven to attain the goal of union with God. The monk began ascending the ladder of contemplative prayer with sacred reading, which led to meditation/prayer, and ended with contemplative union. For Franciscans, the focus or gaze is not upward, but rather outward toward ordinary human life, particularly focused on the Incarnation, where God chose to descend into our world to become one with us through the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.
—from the book Franciscan Field Guide: People, Places, Practices, and Prayers
by Rosemary Stets, OSF
