Sister Clare Theresa Crockett

Life

Clare Theresa Crockett was born on 14 November 1982 in Derry, Northern Ireland, during the Troubles. As a teenager she pursued acting and television presenting, building a career that promised fame, money and a life far from the Catholic faith of her childhood.

In Holy Week 2000, on what she thought was a free trip to Spain, she found herself on a pilgrimage organised by the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother. During the veneration of the Cross on Good Friday she experienced a profound conversion, later saying she felt Christ ask her not to throw her life away. She entered the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother in 2001, taking the name Sister Clare Maria of the Trinity and the Heart of Mary.

Her religious life took her to Spain, the United States and Ecuador, where she served as a teacher, hospital chaplain, vocations director and missionary. Loved for her exuberant joy, sense of humour and music, she voiced Lucy in the EWTN children's series Hi Lucy and recorded songs that became popular among young Catholics.

On 16 April 2016, while teaching guitar to postulants in Playa Prieta, Ecuador, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck. The convent collapsed, killing Sister Clare and five of her young students. Her body was returned to Derry and buried in Derry City Cemetery.

Her cause for beatification was officially opened in the Diocese of Alcalá de Henares, Spain, with the appointment of postulator Sister Kristen Gardner in 2023. She was formally declared Servant of God in 2024. Devotion to her has spread rapidly through the documentary All or Nothing and her published letters and homilies.