Sister Clare Crockett's first step towards sainthood takes place

His Excellency, Antonio Prieto Lucena, Bishop of the Diocese of Alcala de Henares, presided over the opening ceremony in the Cathedral of Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain.

Sister Clare’s family and friends were accompanied at the ceremony by the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother, Bishop Donal McKeown, Bishop of Derry, Fr Stephen Quinn, OCD Termonbacca and Fr Gerard Mongan Adm.

Thousands more from Derry, the Diocese and across the world watched the ‘momentous occasion’ online while many also gathered at special showings in Derry’s Brunswick Moviebowl.

The Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother were constituted as the petitioner of the cause in which Sr. Kristen Gardner, Servant Sister of the Home of the Mother, was named postulator.

At the ceremony, Sr. Kristen Gardner read the formal request from September 2021 to the Bishop the opening of the diocesan process, which has now taken place.

In the letter, she outlined how Clare Teresa Crockett was born on November 14, 1982 in Derry and as a young girl, her ultimate aspiration was to become a ‘famous Hollywood actress.’

However, she ‘sat aside all her dreams’ after an encounter with the Lord, that transformed her soul and ‘she no longer longed for anything other than to have Christ as her only love’.

She entered the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother on August 11, 2001, at the age of 18. She took her first vows on February 18, 2006, taking the religious name of Sr. Clare Maria of the Trinity and the Heart of Mary. She took her perpetual vows on September 8, 2010.

Sister Clare served in Servant Sisters’ communities in Belmonte, Cuenca (Spain), Jacksonville, Florida (USA), Valencia (Spain), Guayaquil (Ecuador), and Playa Prieta, Manabí (Ecuador).

On April 16, 2016 at the age of 33, the collapse of the house where she lived in Equador ‘brought her to the long-awaited final encounter with the Lord.’

Sister Kristen said that the community allowed Sister Clare to be buried in her hometown of Derry, ‘with the firm conviction that Sister Clare in a special mission to evangelise her native country after her death,’

Her funeral on May 2, was overflowing with countless relatives, acquaintances and even people who had heard of the news of her death and ‘had been impressed by the witness of her life’.

“However, it did not end there. The surprise was to discover that Sister Claire, after her death, did not only have the mission to evangelise Ireland, but the whole world. The community received messages and mails from more than 50 countries and they’re still arriving five years later.’

Sister Kristen said that ‘desperate souls on the verge of suicide have regained hope,’ that those at university have received strength, Catholics have ‘regained the desire to be Saints and love God with all their heart,’ and how ‘young men have been inspired to give their lives to God and enter the Seminary.’ and ‘young women have decided to dedicate their lives to God in various religious institutes’.

Also, she added, ‘countless seminarians and religious have said that Sister Claire has saved their vocation, just when they were thinking they had no choice but to turn their backs on God.’

"A common note in the messages they received is that many describe Sister Clare as their friend.Even without having met her, she is their friend.”

Sister Kristen added how the people who write ‘speak of miracles’ and ‘turn to Sister Clare in their needs and feel they are heard’.

“They ask for relics and that she be proclaimed a Saint by the church’.”

Sister Kristen said the sisters who lived closely with Sister Claire ‘attest that she was noted for her heroic virtues an they themselves, spontaneously, after her death, asked for her help in living the same virtues they saw in her.”

She told how, while no-one ‘expected Sister Claire’s death, it made many exclaim that the Lord has taken her to be with him because she was already prepared,.’

"She had kept nothing but herself and her death was like a door that led her to carry out a much more intense and extensive apostolate than she could ever have done on earth.”

The Opening of the Cause for Beatification of Sr Clare Crockett is the first, important, step on the path to Sainthood.

You can watch the ceremony on Youtube here.