From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Jesus carries our burdens with us   
      
   Jesus also says his "burden is light". There's a story of a man who   
   once met a boy carrying a smaller crippled lad on his back. "That's a   
   heavy load you are carrying there," exclaimed the man. "He ain't   
   heavy; he's my brother!" responded the boy. No burden is too heavy   
   when it's given in love and carried in love. When we yoke our lives   
   with Jesus, he also carries our burdens with us and gives us his   
   strength to follow in his way of love. Do you know the joy of resting   
   in Jesus' presence and walking daily with him along the path he has   
   for you?   
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   April 17th - Bl. Clare of Pisa, Widow   
   (also known as Thora or Theodora of Pisa)   
   d. 1419   
      
   THIS Bl. Clare was the child of Peter Gambacorta, who became virtually   
   head of the Pisan republic, and she was born in 1362; Bl. Peter of   
   Pisa (Gambacorta junior; June 17) was her brother, 7 years older than   
   herself. To provide for the future of his little daughter, familiarly   
   known as Thora (short for Theodora), her father betrothed her to Simon   
   de Massa, a wealthy youth of good family, although the child was only   
   7 years old. Yet, young as she was, she was wont to slip off her   
   betrothal ring during Mass and murmur; “Lord, thou knowest that I   
   desire no love but thine”. At the age of 12 when she was sent to her   
   husband’s home, she had already begun to practise severe   
   mortifications. Her mother-in-law was kind, but upon discovering that   
   Thora was over-lavish in her gifts to the poor she ceased to allow her   
   access to the household stores. Her charitable instincts thus thwarted   
   in one direction, the young bride joined a band of ladies who   
   ministered to the sick, and she took as her special charge a poor   
   woman afflicted with a distressing form of cancer. Thora’s wedded life   
   was of short duration: she and her husband fell ill of an epidemic   
   disease which cost him his life. As she was only 15 her relations set   
   about arranging another marriage, but she was old enough to assert   
   herself, and her decision to remain a widow was strengthened by a   
   letter from St. Catherine of Siena, whose acquaintance she had made   
   when that holy woman had Visited Pisa.   
      
   As a first step, Thora cut off her hair and distributed her fine   
   clothes to the poor--much to the indignation of her mother and   
   sisters-in-law. Then, secretly, through the intermediary of a servant,   
   she arranged for admission into the Poor Clares. Stealing out of the   
   house she made her way to the convent, where she was immediately   
   clothed with the habit, assuming at the same time the name of Clare,   
   by which she was from thenceforth to be known. The following day her   
   brothers appeared at the gates to demand her return, and the terrified   
   nuns let her down over the wall into the hands of her kinsmen, who   
   took her home in disgrace. Although she was kept a prisoner in her   
   father’s house for five months, neither threats nor starvation could   
   shake her determination.   
      
   At last Peter Gambacorta relented, and not only allowed his daughter   
   to enter the Dominican priory of Holy Cross, but promised to build   
   another house of the order. She now became associated with Mary   
   Mancini, also a widow, and destined like herself to be raised to the   
   altars of the Church. The teaching of St. Catherine of Siena strongly   
   influenced the two women who, when they were transferred to   
   Gambacorta’s new foundation in 1382, succeeded in inaugurating   
   observance of their rule in its primitive austerity. This house, in   
   which Bl. Clare was at first sub-prioress and then prioress, became   
   the training centre for many saintly women who afterwards carried the   
   reform movement to other Italian cities. To this day, enclosed   
   Dominican nuns are often spoken of in Italy as “Sisters of Pisa”. They   
   led a contemplative life of prayer, manual work and study: “Never   
   forget”, said Bl. Clare’s director, “that in our order very few have   
   become saints who were not likewise scholars.”   
      
   During the rest of her life, the holy prioress was beset by financial   
   difficulties in connection with her convent, which required   
   alterations and extensions. Nevertheless, when a large sum of money   
   came into her hands with the option of using it for the priory, she   
   preferred to give it for the establishment of a foundling hospital.   
   Perhaps, however, her most conspicuous virtues were her sense of duty   
   and her forgiving spirit--both of which she displayed to a heroic   
   degree in exceptional circumstances. Gambacorta, in the midst of his   
   efforts to maintain peace in the city, was treacherously slain by   
   Giacomo Appiano, whose fortune he had made and whom he had refused to   
   mistrust; two of his sons were done to death by the miscreant’s   
   supporters, whilst a third escaped, closely followed by the enemy, to   
   the door of Bl. Clare’s convent at which he knocked for admission.   
   Recognizing that her first duty was to protect her daughters from the   
   mob, the prioress refused to break the enclosure. Her brother was hewn   
   down at the threshold, and the shock brought on her a severe illness.   
   But Clare could forgive so completely that she invited Appiano to send   
   her a dish from his table that she might seal her forgiveness by   
   partaking of his bread. In later years, when his widow and daughters   
   were reduced to great straits, she opened the convent doors to receive   
   them.   
      
   Bl. Clare was a great sufferer towards the close of her life, and as   
   she lay on her death-bed with outstretched arms, she was heard to   
   murmur, “My Jesus, here I am upon the cross”. Just before she died,   
   however, her face was illuminated with a radiant smile and she blessed   
   her daughters absent as well as present. She had reached the age of 57   
   years. Her cultus was confirmed in 1830.   
      
   There is an Italian life by a contemporary, herself a nun, which has   
   been translated into Latin and printed in the Acta Sanctorum, April,   
   vol. ii, and there are also a few of Clare’s letters, which have been   
   published.   
      
      
   Bible Quote:   
   The wise men will seek out the wisdom of all the ancients, and will be   
   occupied in the prophets.  He will keep the sayings of renowned men,   
   and will enter withal into the subtilties of parables.   
   (Ecclesiasticus 39:1-2)   
      
   Saint Quote:   
   I am not capable of doing big things, but I want to do everything,   
   even the smallest things, for the greater glory of God.   
   --Saint Dominic Savio   
      
      
   <><><>   
   Jesus, gentlest Savior,   
   God of might and power,   
   Thou Thyself art dwelling   
   In us at this hour.   
   Nature cannot hold Thee,   
   Heaven is all too strait   
   For Thine endless glory   
   And Thy royal state.   
      
      
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)