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On July 16, 2003, the feast day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Sr. Clare Crockett received the habit of the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother and commenced her novitiate. She began this new formation period with great generosity, eager to give the Lord her all. Each morning, Sr. Clare prayed for an hour before the Blessed Sacrament.
In the Home of the Mother we have a Carmelite spirituality, and for this reason we feel very united to the Carmelite Order. In August 2002, just after Sr. Clare completed one year of candidacy in the Servant Sisters, she made a pilgrimage through Spain visiting the places sanctified by great Carmelite saints, such as St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila and St. Maravillas de Jesus. In addition, she met the Carmelite Mothers of several cloistered convents, having the opportunity to tell them about her vocation and ask for their prayers. To this day, the Carmelites of Arenas de San Pedro, for example, still remember the joy and grace with which the young Clare told them of her struggles to follow the Lord and how, finally, grace had the victory in her soul.
I have so much pride, Lord. I want it to go away, but I don’t. I’ve spent a lot of time—the majority of my life—wanting to be the center of attention. Now I want to be humble.
I often need to kneel before the Father. The truth is that I only find peace when I lean for support on Him, when I go before Him with all my miseries and I let God be God, who loves me and forgives me unconditionally.
Good Friday is very special because it was there, in Priego City, that the Lord threw me off the horse for the first time (I say for the first time because in my sovereign idiocy, I got back on the horse and the Lord had to repeat the whole "throwing me off the horse" thing many times).
After Holy Week 2014, Sr. Clare wrote this email to Fr. Rafael Alonso, founder of the Home of the Mother, to tell him about some graces she had received. She was in the community of Servant Sisters in Guayaquil (Ecuador) at the time and they had just organized and held the Home of the Mother Holy Week Encounter for families and youth.
We just finished the Holy Week Encounter and it has been a grace for all of us.
For me, as you know, Good Friday is very special because it was there, in Priego City, that the Lord threw me off the horse for the first time (I say for the first time because in my sovereign idiocy, I got back on the horse and the Lord had to repeat the whole "throwing me off the horse" thing many times). [...]
Prayer and meditation was hard for me. One thing that helps me was something Cantalamessa said: "When we find ourselves in a situation of chronic distractions, which it is no longer up to us to control, let our thoughts go where they will, but may our body remain in prayer. And if you cannot do otherwise, put your poor brother body on its knees and raising your eyes to heaven say to God, 'Lord, my body prays to you.'" Then I try to stay on my knees as long as possible so that the Lord and Our Lady may see that I do not want to abandon them. I also read this quote that I loved, "When the heart is dead and we no longer have the slightest prayer or supplication, hopefully when the Lord comes, He finds us prostrate face to the ground forever" (St. Isaac the Syrian).
Let’s see....Good Friday... We had time for prayer in front of the monument in the morning. It was very important for me to accompany the Lord. I imagined that He was still in prison, so I went there to see Him and to place myself in His presence. I presented to Him my cold soul and my hard heart and I told Him that sometimes I think that my faults and my sins are bigger and stronger than me. Sometimes I want to give up and give in to the temptation that I cannot fight anymore. The Lord listened to me attentively and at the end He said to me, "Are your sins and all the bad things you have greater than Me? You have all my blood, I have given everything for you." I experienced afterwards that I had to renounce Satan (what we do at the Easter Vigil). I thought, "I don't know it by heart," but providentially I had in my notebook a sheet we used a few days before for the radio that had all the renunciations on it. I saw that it was totally from God. With all my soul, I asked the Lord to cover my whole mind, will and heart with His blood so that He might always be my center and my end.
On the feast day of the Immaculate Conception, I had a strong encounter with Our Lady. I tried to meditate on the sorrow of Our Lady during the crucifixion.
Giving and doing good to others is such a blessing! Blessed be God! He is the One Who does everything.
In the HM Magazine issue number 109, November-December 2002, we found this poem that Sr. Clare, candidate for the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother at the time, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
I think about our persecuted brothers and sisters a lot. I pray for them, and I really feel that Sr. Guadalupe’s testimony and integrity as well as the bravery of the Nazarenes.
The Virgin Mary is so great! I don’t know how to explain how much good it does me to be with Her and just look at Her.
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