Illuminata Pace - Women's Household
Illuminata Pace
Women’s Household Rule of Life
As women illuminating peace, we seek to live a simple, selfless, life after the example of our patrons St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi in order that we may bring light to the world. This life is exemplified in the Prayer of St. Francis:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light; And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console; To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
In seeking to live according to these words and in uniformity with God’s Divine Providence in each of our lives, we hope to, with His grace, embody the four qualities so much needed in the world today: peace, humility, joy, and prayerfulness.
We ask that Christ may write His Peace so deeply in our hearts that it may never be blotted out. We wish to attain peace of mind and spirit by allowing Christ to fully establish His reign in us. Through knowing, trusting, and serving Him, we seek to radiate this Peace so that we may bring the light of Christ to others. In possessing ourselves more fully in body and soul and meeting others always with charity, we will announce peace with our tongues as it resides in our hearts.
Like our patrons St. Francis and St. Clare, we seek to allow our Prayer to inform our daily lives. Prayer is our most personal link to our beloved Master and we wish to cultivate this link to its utmost through His true presence in the sacraments, traditions of His Church, and in His creation. These forms of prayer will be our lungs, allowing God to infuse us with His breath of life that empowers our ongoing conversion to be transformed into Christ’s image and likeness.
In the words of St. Thomas Aquinas, each of us aims to be the horizon of creation, where the heavens and the earth are united; as a link between time and eternity; as a synthesis of the creation. We reflect upon the idea that “From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, the name of the Lord is worthy of praise.” (Psalm 113). Through the Incarnation we are united to Christ in this way in the Eucharist, and so we can find Him dwelling within ourselves and within all of creation.
Through asking and allowing our Lord to move in us, we grow in Humility as St. Francis did in his emulation of the life of Christ. We strive to be like the sparrows of the air and the wildflowers of the fields; they sing and look to the Father who has fed and clothed them in beautiful simplicity. By surrendering our lives to Christ, we will come to know His loving care:
Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns: and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they?… Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they labour not, neither do they spin… And if the grass of the field, which is today, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, God doth so clothe: how much more you, O ye of little faith? (Matthew 6:26-30)
By committing to a simple life, we strive to shed off the garments of selfishness and the weight of pride, that we may don humility and feel the freedom of Christ. We give everything to Christ, asking that our frail merits may be multiplied and purified by Our Lady before they are presented to Our Lord. We ask God to see ourselves as He does – no more, no less – with all of our present faults and the talents He has given us for His glory. Our Lady of Czestochowa is our mother, our guardian, and our persevering hope through trial and temptation. She tunes and refines us through an example of true strength and suffering so that we might more fully Illuminate the Peace of Christ.
Giving all our actions, sufferings, and happiness, to Him as a sacrifice of praise, we seek to take delight in the life that God has given us, whether it is pleasant or not at the time. Thus, the glow of divine light shines out from our eyes, hearts, and souls. This is the joy that lies beyond superficial happiness, the joy that is divinely inspired, and the joy that raises the mind and heart to give glory to God. Even in the moments when we experience doubt or sorrow, we may know as Christ proclaims in Scripture that He is always in control and always with us: “He awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still’ and the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?’ And they were filled with awe, and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?” (Mark 4:39-40). Christ is the calm in every storm, the only true source of peace.
Living in peace, humility, joy, and prayerfulness changes us inwardly so that outwardly we may spread the ripples of peace and harmony throughout the Body of Christ. Our household strives to continuously make that conversion as we search for the simplicity and wonder of youth with the wisdom of age. Nothing great was achieved through mediocrity. Only through suffering and surrender to the will of God will one truly find peace.
