A powerful letter from Sister Clare Crockett calls us to break free from the fear of pleasing all, embrace interior freedom and live authentically in Christ.
Newsroom, July 13, 2025, Gaudiumpress – And what if the need to please is a trap disguised as virtue? This letter from Sister Clare will help you recognize those voices that do not come from God. We live in a world where pleasing others seems like a vital necessity. From a very young age, we learn that being accepted is a kind of guarantee that we won’t feel alone, that we’ll be “valued,” that we “won’t fail” in the eyes of others. But this need, if not guided by truth and freedom, becomes a real trap of wolves—an invisible prison that slowly consumes our inner being.
Sister Clare Crockett, a nun who died in 2016 during the earthquake in Ecuador, increasingly known and appreciated, left a legacy of authenticity, radical surrender, and love for God. Her life was also a call to leave behind fears and false securities. And one of the most subtle but destructive of those fears is the desire to please everyone.
The young woman who once received a letter from Sr. Clare
Suzy Donovan, a young woman from Jacksonville, Florida, USA, received a letter from Sister Clare Crockett, in which the nun speaks about a topic that affects many people: the desire to please everyone. The message can help us fight these “whispers of the devil.”
“To be free and to truly follow God, you must cut ties with all your ‘securities,’” Sister Clare writes at the beginning of the letter. With these words, she begins a reflection addressed to Suzy, whom she met during a mission in the United States.
In the text, Sister Clare warns about the false securities that lead us away from the path of God. The fear of losing them causes us to create empty questions, which she calls “whispers of the devil.” “These questions torture us. They’re like a whirlwind inside us,” she writes.
The nun states that living to “please everyone” paralyzes the soul and prevents us from acting with freedom: “When someone (you) tries to ‘look good,’ your intentions in doing so are wrong. Your constant fears about what others will think of you paralyze you—whether you realize it or not.”
The solution proposed by Sister Clare is not easy, but it is liberating: stop giving so much importance to outward appearance. Begin to look more inward. Abandon the vanity that imprisons us and open our hearts to what truly beautifies: love, surrender, obedience.
Thanks to the generosity of Suzy, who decided to share this letter, today this message can reach many. Because all of us, at some point, have felt enslaved by “what will they say?” All of us have felt that we’re not enough, that we have to please, that we must not fail, or that we need to change our essence to fit in somewhere. And this burden, far from bringing us closer to God, distances us from His plan of love.
The letter from Sister Clare is not just for Suzy. It’s for you, for me, for everyone who has ever been afraid to be who they truly are. It’s an invitation to stop living for others and start living for God; to break away from the devil’s whispers and open ourselves to the serene voice of the Holy Spirit, who tells us: “Do not be afraid, I am with you.”
Letter from Sister Clare to Suzy:
Dear Suzy,
To be free and to truly follow God, you must cut ties with all your “securities” — often vain and false.
Image can be (and often is) a false security. It’s something we can “hide” behind. It’s something we trust in too much: “What will they think of me if they see me like this?” “Do I look fat?” “Is my hair ugly?” “Will people still want to be around me if I have an acne outbreak?”
These questions torture us. They’re like a whirlwind inside us. They are the whispers of the devil that — with these vain, superficial, and sad questions — distract us from where we really want to go, from who we truly want to be, from who we truly are.
When someone (or you) tries to “look good,” your intentions for doing so are wrong. Your constant fears about what others will think of you paralyze you, whether you realize it or not.
One way to break with this “false image,” this shallow self-reliance, is to stop giving so much importance to your outward appearance. That’s why I’m asking you what I’m asking! What does it matter what others think of you?
“Love (and allow me to add: surrender and obedience) is the beauty of the soul.”
Sister Clare
With information from ChurchPop
Compiled by Adele Wong.
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