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HEROIC THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES OF BLESSED MARIA CLARA
PROVIENCE OF OUR LADY OF THE MOUNT

- The theological virtues appear profoundly entwined in Mother Maria Clara's spiritual life and apostolic action.
FAITH
- Mother Maria Clara manifested throughout her life, an unshakable faith in God adhering to Him with all her heart and trying always to love Him with an absolute radicalism not withstanding contradictions and difficulties of every kind.
Life of prayer and discernment
- The spirit of faith that characterizes her was nurtured by a deep interior life and by the constant practice of discernment of the Divine will, in such a way that her person and action showed not only in her interior obedience to the truths revealed but also in a total and loving surrender to the absolute Lordship of God.
- Her contemporaries saw her as " a woman of deep prayer" (ref. id. Pg. 256), animated by a great faith in God(ref.id.pg 235) whom she would discover present and real in all the events and people.
Identification with God's will
- She radically assumed the condition of a creature whom the Lord lovingly provides , sustains , shelters , and defends, under His glance, ready to do His will, in a continuous desire to total identification with Him
Confident Surrender in Divine Providence
- She lived a deeply dynamic faith. In everything she discovered God's action and made an effort to adhere herself to Him promptly. In daily life, in every little action at every moment and every human being, however great her difficulties and bitterness of body and spirit, she discovered the permanent assistance of a solicitous and loving Providence.
Welcome everything as coming from God
- Firmly convinced that everything proceeds from Him, she assumes as a fundamental norm of her life of faith "welcome everything as coming from the hands of God
- In everything is included the small and big sacrifices sustained by fraternal living. She wrote in the 2nd Circular: "Be good to one another; receive everything as coming from God's hands who permits everything for our good"


B HOPE
- One of the most admirable aspects of the religious personality of the Servant of God is undoubtedly, her invincible and healthy Christian optimism.
- Her optimism was deeply founded on an unshakable faith in the merciful love of God, which made her walk so serene and secure amidst the bitterness of her existence, "as though she saw Him who is invisible!
- Hope lived as fidelity to love and coherent in faith.
- The Servant of God lived in Hope as an answer to fidelity to love, a consequent attitude to Him Whom she had surrendered herself entirely, remaining in the light of His Glance, "living solely for God, having but one heart and one soul in God.
Perseverance in Hope." as though she saw Him who is invisible".
- Indomitable in the path towards the Lord and conscious of the mission that He had confided to her, she remained faithful and courageous till the end, certain that the Congregation was God's work, and that He will guide and sustain it(ref. infra, vol. pg.211).


CHARITY
- The witness agree in affirming that the predominant virtue in Mother Clara was charity and she lived it to a truly heroic degree.
- Love and total surrender to God.
- She loved God so profoundly, in an entire and absolute adhesion, that He was her life and everything. He was the ultimate reason of her life, and she concentrated all the energy of her heart and sprit in Him. Her only aim was union with him in soul. life and heart.
- Charity towards the nearest
- Sisters
- The Servant of God "loved her sisters very much" )ref. infra, vol. II pg.245) She served them personally, emptying herself of everything and striving with heart and soul for their spiritual advantage, she desired to give her life in order to make them reach the grace of sanctification.
- The sick
- She offered a balm of immense charity to all without any distinction whether it was treating a poor mother of a family(ref.id.pg.44) or a young soldier (ref.id.pg. 116)or a contagious disease (ref.id.74 & 76)or the families of workers fallen into misery)
- Children
- She loved children tenderly and never placed limits to those whom she received gratuitously and there were hundreds of them be it in the Boarding at Trinas or in the other Schools entrusted to the Sisters(ref. infra vol. II, pg.74)
- The promotion of women.
- In a century in which there was certainly not a good tone in the lowest social strata Mother Maria Clara was not afraid to dedicate herself to the promotion of the degraded woman in spite of the objections from the authorities and the difficulties of living with persons whom vice and revolt had brutalized.
- She not only educated the sons, bur she rejoiced to contribute to their human and Christian rehabilitation. Indeed she felt honoured to see her sisters work with solicitude and love, catechizing them and instructing.
- Mission "ad gentes"
- Desirous of making God known and loved all the time and in every place, the Servant of God did not hesitate in sending her sisters to other climates and Continents, thus writing the most beautiful page of faith and love in the history of Portuguese missionaries.
- The acceptance of Mission ad gentes at the cost of risks and great sacrifices to the Congregation, Certainly constituted a sensitive heart and a delicate faithful and persistent till the end. This explains the great desire that devoured her to gain souls for Christ and to co operate in their salvation (ref infra Vol. II pg.89 )
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