St Clare is Patron of
the Media, she started out as patron saint
of Radio, advanced to TV and, by association, has tucked the internet
under her mantle.
Clareshare began, as most good things do, by what looked like and
accident.
An American doctor, who had been involved in some of the research
on the measurable good affects of prayer, put our community’s name
on his website as a resource for prayer for the sick. The
first we knew about this, one unsuspecting morning, was a download
of more than seven hundred prayer intentions!
Our sisters whose task it is, answered the emails as they answer
the other calls for prayer made by letter, phone or received from
visitors who have come in person to ask for prayers here. But we
began to take life online very seriously and to see what a great
gift had been given to us.
We encountered three particular people on the net around that time.
They were Granny with new-born twins living on the edge
of medical expertise, Betty, whose family included
two children with Leukaemia, and David, struggling heroically
with suffering and debt, who, in thanksgiving for the prayers of
the sisters wanted to do something for the community.
Though we live, very simply, on what people give us, we did not
think it right to accept financial support from someone who was
struggling for sheer survival. Praying for children is a special
tradition for the daughters of St Colette, so we asked David
if he would be pleased to pray with us for the children recommended
by Granny and Betty, and for another very special
child called Liam, who is brain damaged, blind, paralysed
and epileptic - results of injuries received in the first weeks
of his existence with his natural parents, from whose care he was
removed.
We have never met dear Granny , who lives on another continent,
but she felt we ought to have help with all this praying.
So she put up a notice on her parish bulletin board and here in
Wales picked 40 names at random off our address book (which by this
time included the 700 mentioned above) and asked them if they would
like to share in our life of prayer. Most of these people
we did not know. Only one of them positively did not want
to pray for anything, and such was our limited skill with the internet
we could not for the life of us get this good lady off the list!
However, our communications skills improved and another Clareshare
founder, Maryanne explained to us what a useful thing BCC
was for not distributing one’s address list. In the
heat of the moment, with a particularly urgent intention we once
forgot to send BCC and we had our only other cancellation to date;
the good lady said that, much as she loved us and accepted our profound
apologies, our technological carelessness amounted to terrorism
(we agreed without reservation) The other 300 or so Claresharers
generously forgave us our trespasses!
Clareshare began in 2001. Three weeks after it tumbled into
existence, as planes ploughed into the sides of the two towers we
began to understand fully to what the Lord had in mind.
Here at Ty Mam Duw the many intentions we receive every day are
remembered by name at the Office of Terce, around 9 am and after
Compline at around 8.30 pm. All your Christmas greetings are
brought to the Crib on January the 6th, the Feast of the Epiphany.
On Easter night all the prayer slips, letters and emails go up in
a blaze as part of the Easter fire from which the great Paschal
Candle is lit!
Companions
Some join Clareshare
just because it is positive news and they enjoy reading about nuns
who can be happy in their simplicity. Others choose to follow the
community's daily round of praise to God, and make a special thing
of the prayer intentions; people like Mary, Cath and
Joe, who are housebound with chronic illness, and others
like Tom and Colette who work with the disadvantaged
in some of the worlds rougher places. These have chosen to
become Clareshare Companions. Men and women of St Clare, leading
lives out in the world with an extra dimension.
For these Poor Clare brothers and sisters in the world we send,
on request, a pack that includes the community’s daily prayers,
St Francis Office of the Passion and an Office for the Dead; a format
to pray for those who have died. With this is a copy of the
daily timetable for those who especially like to link up their praying
with ours.
Some of these Companions have formed Clare prayer groups and over
the years quite a number of people have asked us if there could
be a Clare Rule or Form of Life, for those who live in the workaday
world. After much prayer we have tried to answer this need.