ROCKFORD—Mass for the feast of St. Clare was held Aug. 11 at 8 a.m. at Corpus Christi Monastery in Rockford.

 

Bishop David Malloy was joined at the Mass by several seminarians, Father Carl Beekman and Father Connor Orabutt. The Mass welcomed a few dozen people of all ages, some of whom lingered to visit briefly with the Poor Clare nuns in the monastery parlor after the Mass. 

 

In his homily, Bishop Malloy noted it was the 770th anniversary of St. Clare’s death.

 

“Being with you, sisters, we see in you not just a memory, but what is even more, a living memory of Clare and of Francis … Sisters, you are the footsteps, the living memory of one who … experienced the Most High, the Holy Spirit, the Son of God, (and) the handmaid of the Lord,” he said. 

 

“Clare and her sisters had hearts as big as the world, as contemplatives they interceded before the Eucharist … for the whole of humanity.”

 

All were welcomed to take buns made and wrapped by the nuns in memory of a story of St. Clare where the shape of a cross miraculously appeared on loaves of bread that she had blessed. Another story speaks of a single loaf of bread that was available to feed some 50 of St. Clare’s nuns. She blessed and broke the loaf, noting the power of Jesus in the Eucharist, and the bread multiplied and fed them all.