8/11 Feast Day of St. Clare of Assisi

S_SAINT CLAIRE
St. Clare of Assisi
Virgin, Foundress of the Poor Clares

Excerpts from EWTN website:

The Lady Clare, “shining in name, more shining in life,” was born in the town of Assisi about the year 1193. She was eighteen years old when St. Francis, preaching the Lenten sermons at the church of St. George in Assisi, influenced her to change the whole course of her life.

...Clare’s hands were forever willing to do whatever there was of woman’s work that could help Francis and his friars. “Dispose of me as you please,” she would say. “I am yours, since I have given my will to God. It is no longer my own.” 

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1/7/30 – Vol. 27

I (Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta) was feeling all abandoned in the Supreme Fiat, and I thought to myself:  “What could I give to my beloved Jesus?”

And He (Our Lord Jesus Christ), immediately:  “Your will.”

And I:  “My Love, I gave it to You, and having given it, I believe I am no longer free to give it to You, because it is Yours.”

And Jesus:  “My daughter, every time you would like to give Me the gift of your will, I accept it as a new gift, because I leave the human will in its free willing, in such a way that the creature can be in the act of giving it to Me always.  And I accept it as many times for as many times as she gives it to Me, because she sacrifices herself as many times for as many times as she gives Me the gift of itAnd in seeing that the creature is constant in giving Me her continuous gift, I see that there is true decision on her part, and she loves and esteems the Gift of My Will; and I, just as she gives Me the continuous gift of hers, give her the continuous Gift of Mine; and expanding her capacity—because the creature is incapable of taking the whole endlessness of My Volition—I keep increasing, continuously, more sanctity, more love, more beauty, more light and more knowledge of My Divine Will. 

“So, in the exchange we make—you, of your will, and I, of Mine—we double the gifts, and it remains bound so many times for as many times as we make the exchange of it.  Therefore, I always have something to give you, and you too, because in My Will things never end, they arise in every instant; and as you gave your will to Me, at the contact with Mine, yours has acquired the prerogative of Mine, of being able to give itself continuously to your Jesus.”