Music Ministry

Sisters of St. Francis, Oldenburg

Claire is married to Ben Bain, and they recently celebrated their 41st anniversary. For their 40th, they rented a house in Bar Harbor, Maine overlooking the ocean. Their entire family was there, including their oldest son Benjamin and his wife Courtney who live in Dallas, their son David, his wife Caitlin and grandchildren Rowan ( and Molly (5), who live in Westfield, Indiana, and their youngest, Elizabeth and her fiance Chloe, who live in Portland, Oregon. Her mother, Virginia Kurlinski is 92 and doing well and she has five sisters (Claire is the oldest), Elaine, Andrea, Kathleen, Susan, and Mary. 

Ben and Clare have lived in Indianapolis since 1997. 

She has been in Music Ministry since she was 13, when she started playing guitar in church in Pittsburgh, PA. Since then, she has served as Director of Music Ministry in Athens, Ohio, Marietta, Ohio (where she met Ben), St. Clairsville, Ohio and Indianapolis at St. Gabriel. She was Director of Music Ministry at Marian University from 2004-2016, where she started the Sacred Choir and developed a degree in Pastoral Music Ministry. In 2016, Clare returned to St. Gabriel and served as Pastoral Associate, with responsibility for music and liturgy. She feels her life was enriched by the multicultural make up of St. Gabriel, and she became proficient at “Church Spanish”, with some conversational Spanish, and Clare enjoyed selecting music and playing at bilingual masses as well as English. She is “retired” now but still playing and singing almost every weekend.

Her interests include singing in the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir now, and she is taking piano lessons with the goal of being able to play “Clair de Lune”, a song her father played for her since she was a baby.

Her contact Sister was Sr. Gloria Gallagher and when she became an Associate, they had the ceremony at Marian and some of her students sang for it. It was a very special time for Clare, connecting her work at Marian with her vocation as an Associate. 

Clare was recently elected to the Associate Advisory Board and looks forward to spending more time in Oldenburg. We look forward to seeing more of her, also.