11/08/2026
MESSAGE OF THE MINISTER PROVINCIAL on the Feast
of our Holy Mother
ST. CLARE OF ASSISI
On the Occasion of the 800 years anniversary of the Transitus of St. Francis (1226โ2026)
Dear brothers and sisters,
This year, the entire Franciscan Family celebrates with profound gratitude the Eighth Centenary of the Transitus or Easter of our Holy Father St. Francis (1226โ2026). We remember not simply his passing from this world, but the completion of a life progressively conformed to the poor, crucified, and risen Christโa Gospel life whose light continues to shine eight centuries later.
It is also beautiful that the Poor Clares in the Philippines celebrate the Feast of St. Clare under the theme: โSt. Clare, the Witness of Our Holy Father St. Francis.โ This theme brings us to the heart of Clareโs vocation. Clare was not simply a disciple whose identity is understood through Francis. She became a crucial witness, interpreter, and guardian of his memory. Without Clare and the community of San Damiano, some significant episodes of Francisโs life and spirituality might never have been preserved for us. In this sense, Clare truly becomes a โwitness of Francis.โ
We often think that Clare can be understood only in the light of Francis. Yet when we look at the sources, we discover the opposite as well: today it is possible to know many aspects of the life of Francis only in the light of Clareโs testimony.
What are these ideals of our Holy Father St Francis that our Mother St Clare defended, preserved and witnessed in her contemplative way at San Damiano? Let me share at least three of these.
Poverty: To Belong Completely to Christ and Stand Beside the Poor
Perhaps nothing reveals Clareโs fidelity to Francis more clearly than her passionate defense of Most Holy Poverty. First, for Clare, poverty was not simply renunciation but total belonging to Christ. Because Christ freely became poor, she desired to follow Him in the same freedom, trusting not in possessions or guarantees but in God. Her deepest conviction was simple: Christ is the treasure; therefore everything else becomes relative.
Secondly, Clareโs poverty was not merely personal it was communal. Medieval monks and nuns could own nothing individually while their monasteries possessed extensive lands, buildings, and revenues. Though this provided stability, by the thirteenth century it raised questions of evangelical credibility. In cities crowded with the poor and insecure, communities that embraced communal poverty appeared closer to the poor and therefore more faithful witnesses to the Gospel. Clare wanted the whole community to share poverty.
Finally, in connection with the above, poverty was not simply having less for her; it was a way of remaining close to the poor, dependent on God, and free from the security that can make us insensitive to suffering. This was the deeper meaning of the Privilege of Poverty. Clare fought for the right to remain insecure by the standards of the world because she wanted her community to remain secure in the Gospel and their life remain close to the vulnerable poor.
Today, that challenge is painfully concrete. Floods have taken lives, submerged homes, displaced families to evacuation centers, destroyed livelihoods, and forced many to begin again with almost nothing. And when funds meant for flood control are lost to corruption, the scandal becomes even greater. Corruption is no longer merely the stealing of money; it becomes the stealing of safety, dignity, livelihood, and sometimes even life itself.
Clare therefore asks us: Does our way of living keep us close enough to feel the suffering of the poor? In a culture of greed, privilege, and indifference, her Gospel response remains prophetic: simplicity instead of excess, sharing instead of accumulation, solidarity instead of privilege, and compassion instead of callousness.
2. Fraternity and Peace: San Damiano as a School of Gospel Communion
Clareโs poverty opened naturally into fraternity. If nothing is simply โmine,โ then everything becomes giftโGod, one another, and creation itself. San Damiano became a school where peace was built through mutual love, service, forgiveness, listening, and shared responsibility. Clare urged her sisters to preserve โthe unity of mutual love, which is the bond of perfection.โ
For Clare, fraternity meant more than love and fellowship; it meant humble service that broke down social privilege. In many monasteries of her time, noblewomen could remain privileged while poorer sisters did the menial work and served them. Clare rejected this pattern. Though noble by birth and Abbess by office, she chose to serve: doing ordinary tasks, caring for the sick, and even washing the sistersโ feet. At San Damiano, rank gave no one the right to be served. Authority meant service, and fraternity meant becoming sisters without privilege.
And Franciscan fraternity embraces creation. The earth is not a possession to be exhausted but a gift to be received with gratitude and protected with love. When forests are destroyed, rivers poisoned, mountains ravaged, and communities displaced for profit, our relationship with God, neighbor, and creation is wounded.
This is the ecological conversion Francis and Clare still demand from us: to rediscover that we belong to one another. The monastery must therefore become a school of peaceโwhere prayer becomes reconciliation, poverty becomes sharing, contemplation becomes compassion, and love of the Creator becomes courageous care for every creature.
3. Contemplation: The Source that Sustains Everything
Finally, we come to the deepest source of Clareโs life: God himself. For Clare, prayer and contemplation were not merely devotional practices; they were the center from which everything else flowed. Her life poses a disturbing question to our generation: What becomes of life when God is pushed to the margins? What becomes of society when it loses its spiritual center?
Many of the crises we face today are not only political, economic, or social; they are also spiritual and moral crises. When we lose our connectedness with God, with Truth, with what is Good and just, we gradually lose our moral compass. Greed becomes normal, corruption becomes acceptable, violence becomes ordinary, creation becomes merchandise, and even human beings can be treated as disposable. A society that forgets God easily forgets the sacredness of the human person and of creation.
Clare offers another way. Her gaze remained fixed on Christ. Through silence, tears, the Eucharist, and contemplation of the Crucified, she allowed Christ to shape her heart. Prayer did not make her weak or detached from reality; it gave her courage, clarity, and strength. When San Damiano was threatened, she did not surrender to fear. She clung to Christ. Her life teaches us that when storms comeโillness, failure, conflict, uncertainty, disappointment, or fearโwe need an anchor deeper than ourselves. When everything else becomes unstable, hold on to God.
And contemplation did not close Clare in on herself. The more deeply she entered into God, the more deeply she became connected with her sisters, the poor, the Church, the city, and the world. Authentic spirituality always enlarges the heart. It reconnects us with everything that is true, good, beautiful, just, and life-giving.
This is Clareโs urgent message to us today: return to the Source. In a noisy, distracted, and morally confused world, recover the interior life. Without God, we easily lose our center; rooted in God, we rediscover who we are, how we should live, and how we must love. Contemplation is not an escape from the storms of life. It is where we learn to stand firm in the storm.
Conclusion
Dear brothers and sisters, as we celebrate the Eighth Centenary of the Transitus of St. Francis, we are called not merely to honor the memory of Francis and Clare, but to make their Gospel way credible again in our own time.
Our people today are wounded by greed and inequality, Clare calls us to a poverty that brings us closer to the poor and frees us from the illusion that possessions can save us. There is division, injustice, and violence in our country, Clare calls us to build a fraternity rooted in truth, justice, reconciliation, and care for creation. And in a generation increasingly distracted, restless, and spiritually adrift, she calls us back to the deepest Source of all renewal: God.
May every Poor Clare monastery continue to be a living San Damianoโa place where Christ alone is the treasure, fraternity becomes peace, and contemplation becomes compassion and courageous hope for the world. And may all of us who follow Francis and Clare refuse to remain indifferent before the suffering of the poor, the wounds of creation, and the moral and spiritual crises of our time.
Eight hundred years after the Easter of Francis, the witness of Clare remains urgent: return to God, stand beside the poor, rebuild fraternity, and become instruments of peace. When the storms of our time threaten to overwhelm us, let us hold fast to Christ. Rooted in Him, another way of living is not only possibleโit is the Gospel we are called to make visible.
Happy Feast of our Holy Mother St. Clare!
Fraternally,
Lino Gregorio V. Redoblado, OFM
Minister Provincial
