Jesus emphasises how 'to lose' one's life for the cause of the Kingdom is, in truth, to gain it.
Francis, at the beginning of the Regola non bollata (1221), writes that the brothers wished to live following the example of the Lord Jesus.
He emphasises various expressions of the Gospel, highlighting the importance of denying oneself and taking up the cross.
The pious father often gathered his sons around him and spoke at length about the Kingdom of God "the contempt of the world, the necessity of denying one's own will" (FF 1058), teaching them.
"Go [...] proclaim peace to men; preach penance for the remission of sins. Be patient in tribulation, watchful in prayer [...]" (FF 1058).
Leaving oneself to embrace the call in all its breadth, willing to lose one's life to find it in the incarnate Word, was the motif of their daily life.
Illuminating is a passage from the Sources, taken from the Major Legend:
"While one day he was praying, so isolated from the world, and was all absorbed in God, in the excess of his fervour Christ Jesus appeared to him, like one confined on a cross.
On seeing him, he felt his soul melt. The memory of Christ's passion was so vividly imprinted in the innermost recesses of his heart, that from that moment on, when Christ's crucifixion came to his mind, he could hardly restrain himself, even outwardly, from tears and sighs, as he himself reported in confidence later, when he was approaching death.
The man of God understood that, through this vision, God was addressing to him that maxim of the Gospel: 'If you want to come after me, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me' (FF 1035).
But Clare too, her blessed father's first seedling, always endeavoured to deny herself, spurring her own soul and that of her sisters with assiduous meditation on the Passion of Christ.
"To nourish her soul uninterruptedly with the ineffable joys of the Crucifix, she meditated very frequently on the prayer of the five wounds of the Lord. She learned the Office of the Cross, as St Francis, the lover of the cross, had composed it, and she used to recite it with equal love" (FF 3216).
In her wonderful letter to Ermentrude of Bruges*, Clare expresses herself thus:
"Lift up your eyes to heaven, O dearest, for it is an invitation to us, and take up your cross and follow Christ who goes before us. For after many and various tribulations, it is He who will lead us into His glory.
Love God with all your heart, and Jesus, His Son crucified for us sinners, and never let the memory of Him fall from your mind.
Meditate without tiring yourself on the mystery of the cross and on the sorrows of the Mother standing at the foot of the cross" (FF 2915).
Clare, following the example of Francis, lived the Holy Word of the Gospel enclosed in St Damian's, out of love for the Bridegroom, repudiating every worldly ambition.
In the time in which she lived, she chose to live as a recluse for those she loved and by whom she felt loved.
The penitential and renegade dimension is no longer so harsh and disconcerting, when it is Charity that exudes from the walls the beauty of the spousal and regenerative experience she had, by Grace, as well as so many of her sisters.
Ermentrude is responsible for the spread of the Order of the Poor Clares in Flanders.
«For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it» (Lk 9:24)
Thursday after Ash Wednesday (Lk 9:22-25)
