Sr Clare Crockett ‘All or Nothing’ Ireland’s Newest ‘Servant of God’.
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 and Fr Stephen Quinn OCD.
As a teenager she described herself as ‘wild’ and like other teens growing up in Derry, she smoke and drank. She also loved to act and also worked with Channel 4 and other television outlets.
After a religious experience in Spain on Good Friday 2000, she felt called to religious life.She felt confirmation of her call in the months afterwards, including from a priest at the Jubilee World Youth Day in Rome who told her surprising details of her childhood.
In 2001 she joined Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother in Spain, where she took the name Sister Clare Maria of the Trinity and the Heart of Mary. She took her perpetual vows in 2010.
The 33-year-old nun, who had done pastoral care, hospital chaplaincy and missionary outreach in Spain, USA and Ecuador, was trying to lead several people from the school as the 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck.
Sister Clare died during a 7.8 magnitude earthquake that claimed the lives of nearly 700 people in Ecuador. She was ushering children down a stairway at the school where she taught music, when the stairs collapsed, resulting in her death.
Along with Blessed Carlo Acutis, the Derry-born native, who was only 33 years old when she died in a 2016 earthquake in Ecuador, joins a growing number of millennials on the road to sainthood.
Sister Clare Crockett is now known a Servant of God.
To find out more about Sr Clare click on the link below to watch the film All or Nothing.