ROME (OSV News) — They were novices together, sharing joys and hardships of religious vocations. Now, American Sister Kristen Gardner took on a task of diving into the life and virtues of the Irish wild child turned Catholic nun — Sister Clare Crockett — as postulator of her sainthood cause that opened in Madrid Jan. 12.
Sister Kristen is a member of Sister Clare’s congregation — the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother. Accompanied by the sisters, family and bishops present in the Spanish Cathedral of Alcalá de Henares, she emphasized at the Jan. 12 ceremony that “the cause is not moved by human reason” but “a desire to give glory to God.”
And that, she told OSV News, was Sister Clare’s number one desire.
“What she loved the most was Jesus Christ,” she said. “I mean, he’s the one who called her, and he’s the one who she was following. … She loved the life of the Servant Sisters … she was here because she felt the love for Christ on the cross, and she wanted to give him her life in response. And that’s what kept her here. Nothing else.”
The future saint was at the same time a very joyful companion.
“You never imagined that you’re living with a saint or someone who was going to be a saint in the future,” she told OSV News, underlining that Sister Clare “was very generous. She was always the first to do any task. … She was a very joyful person, always laughing. She was very extroverted as well — definitely not shy!”
One of their first encounters brought a lot of laughs, Sister Kristen said. “She invited me to have tea. I was like — have a tea? I said to myself: ‘You’re 17, I’m 14! Who wants to have tea?’ But it’s the difference of cultures. I’m American, she’s Irish, and so the Irish love their tea,” she added, remembering the “outgoing, friendly and funny” Sister Clare.
From ‘wild child’ to religious sister
Derry-born Sister Clare was a promising actress with an ultimate desire to become a famous one, with little interest in religion when she went on a Holy Week retreat in Spain in 2000 that changed her life.
“A friend of hers had signed up for a pilgrimage to Spain with the Home of the Mother. And then her friend got sick, and she offered her ticket to Clare for free. Claire had just heard the word ‘Spain,’ and she’s like ‘sunny Spain. I’m going!'” Sister Kristen said.
The then almost 18-year-old self-confessed “wild child” felt a profound call to religious life after kissing the cross on Good Friday.
While Sister Kristen said “it was a really big grace,” she also said it was a process of spiritual struggle for Clare, who felt the call, but it was hard to just drop her dreams, loved ones and the life she enjoyed.
Back in Ireland “she tried to start going to Mass, but wasn’t very faithful. And so in the summer, the sisters invited her again to World Youth Day in Rome in the year 2000. She was there … and our Lord continued to call her,” Sister Kristen recalled. “So I think this is important because when God calls us, it’s not necessarily just one specific moment, but that he continues to reiterate his call and continues to remind you, because he knows that we need a little push.”
“But at the same time … when she was back in her world, she didn’t want to follow that call,” Sister Kristen continued. “So it was this continual battle. Around November she was out at a bar, partying, drinking, and she got drunk. She went up to the bathroom to throw up, you know, a typical situation for young people.
“And as she was there in the bathroom, she felt like someone was looking at her. And so she looked up. She was like, ‘Is (it) my friend who’s looking over the stall to see how I am?’ And she didn’t see anyone. And then all of a sudden she experienced the words of Christ crucified, saying, ‘Why do you continue to hurt me? Why do you continue to hurt me?’ And she knew she had to change, but she still didn’t have the strength to do so.”
Only God could fill emptiness
In March 2001, she was invited to go to England to film a movie, “which was what her dream was — to be a famous actress.”
But “one night as she was looking at her schedule for the following day, she felt so empty that she started to cry and cry for hours. … She was empty and she knew that only God could fill that hole. And that’s when she took the definitive decision to say, ‘I’m going to go to Spain, I’m going to leave everything, and I’m going to become a sister,'” Sister Kristen said.
After another Holy Week in Spain, she finished high school and entered the Spanish convent of the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother in June.
“She said, ‘I’ve always been an all or nothing character.’ You know, personality ‘black or white.’ She would always go to extremes. When she was young … she didn’t want to be any kind of actress, but a famous actress. … So when she entered and became a sister, she also was ‘all or nothing.’ It was that she had given her life to God. She wasn’t going to give it halfway or just give a little bit, but she was going to give it her all,” Sister Kristen told OSV News.
Sister Clare died at age 33 in the 2016 earthquake that collapsed the school in Playa Prieta, Ecuador, where she was teaching music.
Asked about virtues that stand out in Sister Clare’s life, Sister Kristen told OSV News that what first comes to her mind is obedience.
“Character-wise, she wasn’t an obedient person. Her blood sisters tell stories that when they were little, (she was) everything except obedient. Her parents asked her to wash the dishes and she came up with an excuse to not have to do it. She was never obedient and she had a very strong personality,” Sister Kristen said. “And usually people that have a strong personality — it’s much more difficult for them to obey because they always know what they want to do and how they want to do it.
“And so the fact that she was the point where she could obey and anytime anything was asked of her, she would say, ‘yes, of course,’ with great joy. ‘Yes, of course.’ And she’d run and go do it. I mean, that for me is very extraordinary.”
A virtue of docility
Another of Sister Clare’s virtues, for Sister Kristen, was docility, as she said that instead of “holding on to your way of viewing things,” whenever Sister Clare was corrected, she changed her “way of doing things.”
Pointing to the virtue of “self sacrifice,” Sister Kristen said, “She would never look at herself. I mean, you can have a migraine … but at the same time, as soon as something was needed, she was up and doing it. She wouldn’t complain and look at herself and say, ‘No, I don’t. I’m not feeling well.'”
Sister Kristen said that “she would always make other little sacrifices for young people … completely forgetting herself and giving herself.”
Among testimonies that came to the Home of the Mother congregation from over 50 countries, Sister Kristen said that those of receiving a vocation to priesthood or religious life stand out — young people writing to say they had received “the strength to say yes to God and respond,” thanks to Sister Clare.
Testimonies of being cured of an illness through her intercession are also common and will be further examined, Sister Kristen told OSV News, including an irreversible eye disease being reversed and a brain hemorrhage disappearing — the latter in less than 24 hours after praying to Sister Clare.
Sister Kristen said that she felt Sister Clare’s presence especially when she was writing her biography. “She’s being very generous,” Sister Kristen said of feeling her accompaniment during the process.
“I just kind of feel she’s laughing at me because she was the one who always wanted to do interviews when she was young,” Sister Kristen said with a laugh. “‘I never wanted to do interviews, Sister Claire. You’re the one!’ But she’s got me busy doing this stuff.”
