Walking or cycling on the Clarapad in Drenthe has been possible for about a year now. Initiator Marie-Jolanda Bresser from Zorgvlied gave the Clarissen (nuns) in Megen in Brabant a pilgrimage route as a gift when they celebrated their 300th anniversary last year. She is now working on a sequel: a route to Assisi in Italy, where Saint Clara is lying in state.
“I am a Catholic and a hobby of mine is figuring out the family tree. In the research I came across all kinds of spiritual heights,” explains Bresser. What turned out? One of her old aunts ended up in Megen and was one of the building sisters of the monastery. And Bresser found out about this when she was washing dishes in the monastery with the oldest nun. In this way, two important aspects of her life came together and since then she has wanted to give something back to the nuns.
On a Sunday morning the idea for a Pilgrimage arose. “That’s something for the future and forever,” she says. “I notice that in life often very little thought is given to its intention. Pilgrim helps to completely discharge for a while.”
Bresser found Clara herself after the death of her son. “That was a moment when I was completely thrown back on myself and also started to do a lot of pilgrimages and retreats. That is a moment when you have a lot to figure out for yourself. It helped me to process it and find comfort. find.”
According to Bresser, Saint Clara was a special woman. Her rule of life has been approved by the Pope, which is unique for a woman. This usually only happened to canonized men. “Saint Clare had the shabby Christ first. ‘Poverty’ means that she lived in simplicity and austerity and contemplatively, completely in silence and with Mother Earth first,” she says. “In that form of life you see the sustainability, the way of interacting with each other and social interactions. You can stick that to 2022. She already did that in the twelfth century.”
RTV Drenthe follows part of the Clarapad in Zorgvlied. Watch the video below to see how that works.