Into the radiance of Love

Place your mind before the mirror of eternity! Place your soul in the brilliance of glory! Place your heart in the figure of the divine substance! And allow your entire being to be transformed into the image of the Godhead Itself through contemplation. 

These words from today's saint, Clare of Assisi, in a letter to her sister Agnes, always bring me back to that wondrous line in 2 Corinthians: And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image, from one degree of glory to another. (3.18).

But Clare's angry, confused, disappointed family and friends must have seen nothing in her vocation and choices to speak of any sort of brilliance or glory. Like Francis, Clare had turned her back on wealth and prestige, to embrace radical poverty, humility and servant leadership. There were no mirrors to contemplate in the San Damiano convent, only the crucified Christ, stripped and suffering. She had - literally and metaphorically - cast off her worldly glory, her jewels and her shimmering, embroidered silks, to go barefoot, dressed in coarse, drab, shabby clothes. And yet, she must have glowed!...Oh, how she must have glowed!... As only someone who has truly, definitively plunged into the Source of all Love - all-embracing, abundant, outpouring love - can glow.

Last Tuesday, feast of the Transfiguration I shared two photos on social media - these sunflowers, and the tree outside my window, its leaves drenched with morning sunshine. The ordinary, transformed into radiant translucence. Alongside them, my feast-day greeting, and the wish - May we too be transfigured into the radiance of Love! Today, I can feel Clare echoing that wish with me; for me, and for all who read this. May she pray for us, that we too may be entirely transformed into the image we were created to mirror.