Sister Francis Clare Schares, SSND

Just five days short of her 95th birthday, our beloved Sister Francis Clare Schares, SSND, 94, died peacefully at 5:42 p.m. on Monday, January 20, 2020, in Notre Dame Health Care, Good Counsel Hill, Mankato, Minnesota. Her condition had steadily declined over the past few weeks and it became evident that her death was imminent. Sisters were praying with her in the days preceding her death.

Funeral services include a Prayer of Remembrance at 9:00 a.m. and a Funeral Liturgy at 10:30 a.m., with Father Eugene Stenzel as presider, on Monday, January 27, in Our Lady of Good Counsel Chapel. Burial will follow in the Good Counsel Cemetery.

We extend our sympathy to Sister Francis Clare’s nieces and nephews and their families, her friends, colleagues and former students, and her sisters in community, the School Sisters of Notre Dame and SSND Associates. She was preceded in death by her parents, John and Clara (Mangrich) Schares, her sisters Delores Frost, Adeline Gibbons and Mary Frost, and her brothers Gene, Ray, Vince, Leo and Alvin.

Sister Francis Clare, the sixth child of nine, wrote of her birth, “It was the twenty-fifth day of the month of January in the year 1925, the year of the canonization of the Little Flower of Jesus, when I came to blossom in mid-winter, mid the snows.” She was born on the family farm just over three miles from Gilbertville, Iowa, and was baptized at Immaculate Conception Church in Gilbertville on February 1. In baptism, she received the name, Alma Rose.” Alma Rose started school at Immaculate Conception in 1930. Her First Communion and Confirmation days remained strong in her memory, as did other aspects of grade school life. She wrote in her autobiography, “During my eight years of grade school, I grew and flourished under the tender guidance and instructions of the Notre Dame Sisters. I imagine that I was just about as studious and as mischievous as any of my classmates, for I recall many a call for an explanation of the inconsistency of a report card with all A’s except in conduct. During my sixth year at school, our class inaugurated a Little Flower Library Club, which in no time at all, developed in me a unique and unquenchable passion for reading. Many a time I attempted to set the table by walking about, dishes in one hand, book in the other.” As an eighth grader, she struggled with the idea of entering the aspiranture at Good Counsel Academy in Mankato. With four SSND aunts (Sisters Thecla, Margaret and Henrietta Mangrich and Sister Camilla Schares), she was familiar with SSND life. Her mother became ill and died when Alma Rose was in eighth grade, and this compounded her struggle. After her mother’s death, she “determined with a new determination to forget forever, that I had ever thought of becoming a sister.” However, during the summer, even though she threw away pamphlets that came from Good Counsel, her attitude shifted. After a home visit from her three Mangrich aunts, she decided to become an SSND aspirant, and in the fall of 1938 left home for Good Counsel Academy. Following four happy years in the aspiranture, where school activities “excited her, drove her, and inspired her,” Alma Rose became an SSND candidate in August 1942. As a second year candidate, she taught second grade at St. Agnes School, St. Paul. On July 21, 1944, her day of reception into the novitiate, she was given the name Sister Francis Clare, the “names of that glorious Troubadour of God and Princess of Poverty.” After profession of vows in 1945, Sister Francis Clare taught primary grades at St. Felix, Wabasha, for three years. From 1948 through 1951, she filled in at St. Matthew, St. Agnes and Sacred Heart in St. Paul, while also attending Diocesan Teachers College and the College of St. Catherine. She spent the next twenty years (1951-71) as a junior or senior high teacher at St. Anthony, Lismore; Blessed Sacrament and Columbus, Waterloo, Iowa; St. Gertrude, Raleigh, North Dakota; St. Michael, Madison; and Loyola High School, Mankato. She earned a BA in English and history from St. Catherine in 1951 and an MA in guidance and counseling from Loras College, Dubuque, Iowa, in 1964. It was during her later years of teaching that Sister Francis Clare became aware of the charismatic renewal movement. She read The Cross and the Switchblade by Dave Wilkerson, and later commented, “I became furious because God was more real to Nicky Cruz, a gangster that had broken 15 of the 10 commandments, than to me, a good nun for the past 25 years.” Beginning in 1971, she spent three years in charismatic renewal ministry, fully immersed in programs in Ann Arbor, Michigan and Convent Station, New Jersey. In 1974, she came to Mankato, working in the motherhouse in the mornings and spending the afternoons writing her first book, Wow, God!, which describes in detail her journey into the charismatic renewal movement. She then taught one year at St. Casimir, Wells, and one year at St. Mary, Sleepy Eye. From 1978 through 1982, she ministered in the charismatic renewal programs of the Diocese of New Ulm. In 1983, Sister Francis Clare had the opportunity to move to St. Rita, an SSND convent in West Allis, Wisconsin, where she greatly expanded her ministry in charismatic renewal. Using St. Rita as her base, she traveled extensively, both within and outside the United States. She directed charismatic retreats and missions, gave presentations to parishes and other groups, spoke at national and international charismatic gatherings, prayed with individuals and groups, wrote articles and letters of encouragement, and led more than fifteen pilgrimages to the Holy Land. She completed three more books, Your Move, God; We, The Bride; and Glory to Glory. Her books were translated into various languages. In August 1997, she addressed the University of Notre Dame football team at the invitation of Coach Bob Davie. Sister Francis Clare resided in West Allis until 2003, when she returned to Good Counsel. She continued her charismatic outreach for a few years and then transitioned into retirement on the Hill. She brightened others’ days by sharing a joke or story, and was very generous in sharing gifts that she received from family and friends. She prayed often with and for others. “Glory” was an important theme in Sister Frances Clare’s life. Her final book contained 95 reflections on various aspects of “glory.” Her Funeral Liturgy theme asks that all people give God glory. May Sister Francis Clare, who dedicated so much of her life to the glory and praise of God, now rejoice forever in the glorious presence of God.