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Saint of the Day – August 11 – Saint Clare of Assisi
Saint Clare of Assisi’s Story (July 16, 1194 – August 11, 1253)
One of the more sugary movies made about Francis of Assisi pictures Clare as a golden-haired beauty floating through sun-drenched fields, a sort of one-woman counterpart to the new Franciscan Order.
The beginning of her religious life was indeed movie material. Having refused to marry at 15, Clare was moved by the dynamic preaching of Francis. He became her lifelong friend and spiritual guide.
At 18, Clare escaped from her father’s home one night, was met on the road by friars carrying torches, and in the poor little chapel called the Portiuncula received a rough woolen habit, exchanged her jeweled belt for a common rope with knots in it, and sacrificed her long tresses to Francis’ scissors. He placed her in a Benedictine convent, which her father and uncles immediately stormed in rage. Clare clung to the altar of the church, threw aside her veil to show her cropped hair, and remained adamant.
Sixteen days later her sister Agnes joined her. Others came. They lived a simple life of great poverty, austerity, and complete seclusion from the world, according to a Rule which Francis gave them as a Second Order. At age 21, Francis obliged Clare under obedience to accept the office of abbess, one she exercised until her death.
The Poor Ladies went barefoot, slept on the ground, ate no meat, and observed almost complete silence. Later Clare, like Francis, persuaded her sisters to moderate this rigor: “Our bodies are not made of brass.” The greatest emphasis, of course, was on gospel poverty. They possessed no property, even in common, subsisting on daily contributions. When even the pope tried to persuade Clare to mitigate this practice, she showed her characteristic firmness: “I need to be absolved from my sins, but I do not wish to be absolved from the obligation of following Jesus Christ.”
Contemporary accounts glow with admiration of Clare’s life in the convent of San Damiano in Assisi. She served the sick and washed the feet of the begging nuns. She came from prayer, it was said, with her face so shining it dazzled those about her. She suffered serious illness for the last 27 years of her life. Her influence was such that popes, cardinals, and bishops often came to consult her—Clare herself never left the walls of San Damiano.
Francis always remained her great friend and inspiration. Clare was always obedient to his will and to the great ideal of gospel life which he was making real.
A well-known story concerns her prayer and trust. Clare had the Blessed Sacrament placed on the walls of the convent when it faced attack by invading Saracens. “Does it please you, O God, to deliver into the hands of these beasts the defenseless children I have nourished with your love? I beseech you, dear Lord, protect these whom I am now unable to protect.” To her sisters she said, “Don’t be afraid. Trust in Jesus.” The Saracens fled.
Reflection
The 41 years of Clare’s religious life are scenarios of sanctity: an indomitable resolve to lead the simple, literal gospel life as Francis taught her; courageous resistance to the ever-present pressure to dilute the ideal; a passion for poverty and humility; an ardent life of prayer; and a generous concern for her sisters.
Saint Clare is the Patron Saint of:
Protection from eye disorders
Television
Minute Meditation – A Life of Intimacy with Christ
Clare of Assisi did not follow a traditional path to religious life. She was deeply influenced by the preaching and example of St. Francis and the Lesser Brothers and by the poverty and humility of their lives as they imitated Christ in the Gospels. Clare’s understanding of her vocation was rooted in a life of great intimacy with Christ and a commitment to complete and unmitigated poverty. When she left her home to become a follower of the Gospel life as lived by Francis and his companions, she used his model with the women who joined her after they were settled in the convent at San Damiano.
St. Clare has the distinction of being the first woman in history to write a Rule of Life for religious women at a time when convents for women followed strictly prescribed forms of enclosure and demanded individual dowry provisions for continued sustenance of each monastery. In writing her own Rule, Clare was breaking new ground in the Church by holding to her belief that she was called by God to this very demanding expression of Gospel life. Regis Armstrong writes in Clare of Assisi: Early Documents that she had “a startling sense of individual freedom that was based on [her] experience of the maturity of her sisters.” Clare’s insistence on papal approval to protect her Form of Life—including the “Privilege of Poverty”—not just as a privilege but as a right forged a new understanding of religious vocation in the life of the Church.
—from the book Franciscan Field Guide: People, Places, Practices, and Prayers
by Sister Rosemary Stets, OSF
//Franciscan Media//
Minute Meditation – Clear, Precious, and Beautiful
Francis wrote his immortal Canticle of the Creatures while in Clare’s care at San Damiano. The incredible power and poetry of this song has long fascinated all who read, study, or sing it. One word in that poem, written in Umbrian dialect, and written during a time of daily nursing by Clare, catches the eye. It is the word clarite. “Praised be you, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars, in heaven you formed them clear and precious and beautiful” (Canticle, 5). This is the adjective for the stars. They are “clarite et pretiose et belle,”—clear, precious, beautiful. In the long dark time of his illness, was it Clare who was this “pretiose, belle, clarite” companion whose light helped him endure encroaching blindness and searing pain? She had been—and would remain—the North Star for all who wanted to follow his way.
— from the book Light of Assisi: The Story of Saint Clare
by Margaret Carney, OSF
//Franciscan Media//
Minute Meditation – Clare’s Charism
Clare offers two extraordinarily important lessons. The first is obvious. It is the recognition of how important women—and this woman in particular—are to the Franciscan story. The second is more subtle. It is the lesson that Clare’s importance stems from the fact that she was the recipient of a powerful charism of her own—a gift bestowed by the Spirit of the Lord and given to her in a fullness and forcefulness that was hers alone. That charism, matched with the equally full and forceful charism of Francis, created something akin to nuclear fission. It unleashed a mighty power of example and of hope for people who wanted to live the authentic Christian message.
Too often we suppose that our study and imitation of these great saints is a sure path to our own beatitude. Her story shows us that what matters is not the effort to “draw down” from the spiritual wealth of others whom we admire as though only a supplicant’s sharing of another’s gift can make us good. What she shows us is that we need only have the courage to unlock what is within us, to spend our days powered by the graced anointing that we already possess.
— from the book Light of Assisi: The Story of Saint Clare
by Margaret Carney, OSF
//Franciscan Media//
Minute Meditation – Creating a Rule
As Clare had labored over the years in doing the fine handwork that helped support the monastery, she now set herself the task of a written text. As with the many hours spent creating corporals and altar linens using needle and thread, she made a plan for her design. Her threads were the various strands of regulation and admonition, imitation of other exemplars, and the hard-won wisdom of her sisters. Each of these threads had its own color, its own heft and weight, its own role to play in creating her design. She would center the most important words of all, Francis’s dictates, in the most vivid colors.
These would be encased within a carefully tailored web of words of darker threads that manifested obedience to pontiff and church. For that reverence was also at the heart of the Franciscan way and the threads of somber color conveyed the solemn obligation. Small hints of color and original stitchery would reflect the unique San Damiano spirit, the evidence of women’s ways of walking in Jesus’s footprints. Thus, she and her sisters embroidered an enclosure of words chosen to protect their vision as surely as their stout outer walls. Little by little the work moved forward. As with Francis, the written record was firmly rooted in a lived experience.
—from the book Light of Assisi: The Story of Saint Clare
by Margaret Carney, OSF
Saint of the Day – August 11 – Saint Clare of Assisi
Minute Meditation – Francis and Clare
Many metaphors have been employed to paint the picture of the relationship between Francis and Clare of Assisi. Clare, having once used the phrase “a little plant” to describe her rapport with Francis, unwittingly contributed to maintaining the image of a passive woman totally dependent on the male leader and teacher for her identity.
Years of study influenced by feminist scholarship and diligent work on sources from that period have allowed Clare’s person to emerge with clearer lines, with far more depth than previously imagined. Still, the desire to find the precise category for the friendship of these two saints continues to haunt us. Father-daughter, brother-sister, master-disciple, soul friend, spiritual lover, actual lover—these descriptions have currency in many narratives and dramatic portraits. What they shared was the mysterious and generous outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit granting each a profound desire to live the teachings of Jesus without compromise.
— from the book Light of Assisi: The Story of Saint Clare
by Margaret Carney, OSF
//Franciscan Media//
Minute Meditation – Gazing On Christ
St. Clare of Assisi does not give us a set of prayers that she created, but in her writings we discover her spirituality and her path to God. She invites us to gaze, consider, contemplate, and imitate Christ. Clare gazes on all of creation because it has the potential to speak to her of God. She considers the experiences of her life in the light of the Gospels. She contemplates the crucified and glorified Christ and opens herself to be transformed by the Divine One who loves her. She deeply desires to imitate the One she loves to become the image of the Word of Love. Images of Clare portray her holding the monstrance of the Eucharist, lifting Christ up for all to see. She shows the Most High God to the world.
— from the book Eucharistic Adoration: Reflections in the Franciscan Tradition
by the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration
//Franciscan Media//