Clare of Assisi

Saint Claire of Assisi
Simone Martini, detail depicting Saint Clare from a fresco (1312–20) in the Lower basilica of San Francesco, Assisi
Confessor
Born	July 16, 1194 in Assisi, Italy
Died	August 11, 1253 in Assisi, Italy
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church, Anglican Communion, Lutheran Church
Canonized	September 26, 1255 by Pope Alexander IV
Major shrine	Basilica of St. Claire
Feast	August 11 (alternates: August 12, September 23, October 3)
Attributes	monstrance, pyx
Patronage	clairvoyance, eyes, eye disease, goldsmith, laundry, embrodiers, gilders, gold, good weather, needleworkers, Santa Clara Pueblo, telephones, telegraphs, television

Saint Claire of Assisi, born Chiara Offreduccio, (July 16, 1194 – August 11, 1253) was one of the first followers of Francis of Assisi and founded the Order of Poor Ladies to organize the women who chose to embrace monastic life in the Franciscan vision.

Early Life

Clare was born in Assisi, Italy, in 1194 as the eldest daughter of Favorino Scifi, Count of Sasso-Rosso, and his wife Ortolana. Her mother was a very devout woman who had undertaken pilgrimages to Rome, Santiago de Compostela and the Holy Land. Later on in her life after her three daughters joined the monastery, she left home, Ortolana entered Chiara's monastery.

In 1210, Claire heard the future Saint Francis preaching in the streets of Assisi about his new mendicant order, then newly-approved by Pope Innocent III, and was deeply moved by his words. On March 20, 1212, Clare left her home to follow Francis, who received her into religious life.

Claire chose Palm Sunday as the day she would leave her worldly life. In Assisi, Palm Sunday was usually the scene of the coming-out parties of the town's wealthy girls, dressed in their finery, to receive a palm frond from the bishop. Claire did not follow the tradition on this day and instead sat with her family. That night she secretly left her home through the back door. Accompanied by a friend, she walked out of town to the small Saint Mary's Church in Portiuncula, where Frances waited for her.

With the brothers looking on, Francis cut Claire's hair short, and she put on a rough tunic to indicate her acceptance of the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Cutting her hair was also a sign to her angry family that she would not go back home.

It seemed that Francis had no plan as to where Claire should stay, so she lodged first with a nearby monastery of Benedictine nuns at San Paolo delle Abadesse and then into the community of Sant'Angelo in Panza on Mont Subasio. Her sister, Agnes, also left her parents and relatives and followed Claire to Sant'Angelo. In both cases, their angry family was unable to take their daughters back home.

After Francis and the brothers finished restoring the little Damiano church outside Assisi, Claire and Agnes moved to San Damiano, where they founded the Order of Poor Ladies and many women of the region quickly joined them. Francis called out to a person passing by during the restoration, "Come and help me build the monastery of San Damiano, because ladies will again dwell here who will glorify our heavenly Father... by their celebrated and holy manner of life." Claire would remain there for the rest of her life. Agnes would leave only to help establish a convent near Florence, returning before Claire's death. Their younger sister, Beatrice, joined them in 1229.

Monastic Life

Unlike the Franciscan order, whose members moved around the country to preach, Claire's nuns lived in enclosure, since an itinerant life was hardly conceivable at the time for women. Their life consisted of manual labor and prayer.

As the first Franciscan nun, at age 18, Claire was the natural leader of her convent. However, only after three years of Francis' insistence would she accept the position of "Mother" of the group, at 21 years of age. She led not by a formula or strict rules but by her own life example.

To feed and care for a house of women who denied earthly needs was a great challenge. Claire put her trust in God. She endeavored to make herself a living vessel of God's grace. He method to achieve this was to empty herself of all desires, even the desire for food, sleep and warmth. Claire actually jeopardize her health through excessive fasting in the early years of her monastic life. For decades, she could hardly walk due to her weakness from fasting. Francis had to step in and convince her that the true spire of Christian mortification of the flesh did not mean literally to sacrifice one's body to the point of death, but only to "die" the world of desire. He insisted that she eat at least a little food every day afterwards.

Claire believed that everyone who followed the life of monastic devotion to Christ was called by God, so she did not urge others to follow her ascetic practice. She saw he choice as a joyous embracing of living with and for Christ, like a lover who feels neither cold or hunger. Claire saw herself as such a lover, running full tilt toward her Beloved, "with swift pace, light step, unswerving feet, so that even your steps stir up no dust."

In a letter to Agnes of Prague, who, with Claire's support, founded her own Franciscan monastery, she expressed her understanding of contemplative prayer:

Place your mind before the mirror of eternity!

Place your soul in the brilliance of glory!

Place your heart in the figure of the divine substance!

And transform your entire being into the image of the Godhead Itself through contemplation.—Early Documents 44

She taught that in the depth of prayer one should look closely at the image of Christ, for in it one finds her own true self. By drawing intimately close to God incarnate, one discovers her own unity with God, also realizing that it was there all along. At times Claire was so deeply in prayer that she reached a state of unconsciousness.

Through Claire's personal sacrifice she found many ways to give to others. She was seen as a healer, both of body and mind. She reportedlyl even protected her convent from invading troops, as well as saving the city of Assisi from an attacking army. Miracles of feeding the hungry were attributed to her as well. Claire found sacred poverty a source of great power in her work at the monastery. During the 30 years of her monastic life she was unswerving in her dedication to the life sine proprio—without property. Over and over again, the Church leadership tried to give her a dowry, but she refused, believing God would somehow provide for her and her sisters.

The new Franciscan spirituality involved a passion for faith, evangelism to the poor and needy, and a total rejection of the rich life of the typical Benedictine houses. This created a tension between the old order and the new.

After Francis' death, Claire continued to promote the growth of her order, writing letters to abbesses in other parts of Europe and thwarting the attempts by each successive Pope to impose a Rule on her order that would water down the radical commitment to corporate poverty that she and Francis had originally embraced. She maintained this principle despite the fact that she had endured a long period of poor health until her death.

Age of Mysticism and the rise of women monastics

Bernard of Clairvaux, gave a series of sermons in the mid twelfth century on the Songs of Songs. In them he moved away from the typical medieval religious thought of feudal society where the religious were thought of as warriors for God, to a powerful mystical metaphor where both men and women monastics becomethe bride of Christ. He urged them to 'anoint and bejewel' themselves inwardly and ready themselves in every way for the "kiss of Christ", for the experience of mystical union with God. This gentler role of a monastic, gave women validation of their own femininity, in place of women as Eve-the temptress, luring men into hell. From this new mystical teaching — from the most respected cleric of the age, women could rise above the cultural burden of the masculine society and find their own voice and a safe and uplifting expression of love, allowing them to become a lover of Christ, fully as women. Women felt liberated and fulfilled in the monastic life.

The relationship between Claire and Francis represented the highest form of courtly love at the time. There was a real tension between the spiritual and physical in life during the Middle Ages, especially in the relationship between men and women. Francis and Clare's pure relationship represented the ultimate love that a man and women could have, that of brother and sister in Christ, each being in love with Christ, each being a lover of Christ and of humankind through their sacrificial devotion and service. Claire, nobly born, beautiful and courageous, followed her man, not into marriage but into a mystical union with Christ. She exuded great joy and happiness in her life choice which was so attractive to others that they also left their worldly possessions and joined the Sisters of the Poor.

Claire's words

Go forth in peace, for you have followed the good road. Go forth without fear, for he who created you has made you holy, has always protected you, and loves you as a mother. Blessed be you, my God, for having created me.

He Christ is the splendor of eternal glory, "the brightness of eternal light, and the mirror without cloud."

Behold, I say, the birth of this mirror. Behold Christ's poverty even as he was laid in the manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes. What wondrous humility, what marvelous poverty! The King of angels, the Lord of heaven and earth resting in a manger! Look more deeply into the mirror and meditate on his humility, or simply on his poverty. Behold the many labors and sufferings he endured to redeem the human race. Then, in the depths of this very mirror, ponder his unspeakable love which caused him to suffer on the wood of the cross and to endure the most shameful kind of death. The mirror himself, from his position on the cross, warned passers-by to weigh carefully this act, as he said: "All of you who pass by this way, behold and see if there is any sorrow like mine." Let us answer his cries and lamentations with one voice and one spirit: "I will be mindful and remember, and my soul will be consumed within me." from a letter to Blessed Agnes of Prague

Place your mind before the mirror of eternity! So that you too may feel what His (Jesus') friends feel as they taste the hidden sweetness which God has reserved from the beginning for those who love Him. written to a Czech princess

Legacy

She is known for her loyalty to Saint Francis, so much so that she was sometimes titled alter Franciscus, another Francis.

Clare was the first woman to write a rule for a monastery. Displeased with Cardinal Hugolino's Benedictine rule written for her order which denied them absolute poverty and the link between the sisters and the brethren that Francis had promised just before his death. She rejected this rule and Pope Innocent IV offered another rule that he wrote in 1247 removing any mention of St. Benedict. This too, was rejected. At fifty-five years of age, Claire began to write her own rule just three years before she died. Her words held no warning of suffering or sacrifice, but simply "Let the tenor of our life" be explained to new members. She does not use the word for nun but only "sister". She states simply, "If, by divine inspiration, anyone should come to us desiring to accept this life, the Abbess is required to seek the consent of all the sisters". Her rule indicates that good sense would guide everyone in the convent. Concerning what the sisters should wear, she asks them to wear something poor just as Jesus was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. And the role of the abbess should not be a watchdog (to monitor their behavior) but a "servant of all the sisters". Claire's attitude was constantly one of joy and gratitude, and deep respect for those who share her life style. "For if a mother loves and nourishes her child according to the flesh, should not a sister love and nourish her sister according to the Spirit even more lovingly?"

On August 9, 1253, the Papal bull Solet annure of Pope Innocent IV confirmed that Clare's Rule would serve as the governing rule for the Order of Poor Ladies. Two days later, on August 11, Clare died at the age of 59.

Pope Innocent IV wrote these words of Claire:

O wondrous blessed clarity of Clare! In life she shone to a few;

After death she shines on the whole world! On earth she was a clear light;

Now in heaven she is a brilliant sun.

O how great the vehemence of the brilliance of this clarity!

On earth this light was indeed kept within cloistered walls,

Yet shed abroad its shining rays; It was confined within a convent cell,

Yet spread itself through the wide world.

On August 15, 1255, Pope Alexander IV canonized Clare as St. Clare of Assisi. In 1263, Pope Urban IV officially changed the name of the Order of Poor Ladies to the Order of Saint Clare.

On February 17, 1958, Pope Pius XII designated her as the patron saint of television, on the basis that, when she was too ill to attend a Mass, she had been miracle|miraculously able to see and hear it on the wall of her room. The Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) was founded by Mother Angelica, a Poor Clare.

In art, she is shown carrying a monstrance or pyx, in commemoration of the time when she warded away attackers at the gates of her convent by raising the Blessed Sacrament over the wall.

Lake Saint Clair and the Saint Clair River in the Great Lakes region of North America were named on her feast day August 12, 1679. Since 1970, her feast day has been the date of her death August 11 in the revised liturgical calendar. Although her body is no longer incorrupt, her skeleton was found to be in a perfect state of preservation and is displayed in Assisi.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Bartoli, Marco. Chiara d'Assisi. Instituto Storico dei Cappucini, Rome, 1989.
• De Robeck, Nesta. St. Claire of Assisi. The Bruce Publishing Co., 1951. ASIN B000I5OFW6
• Falzon, Raymond. The Ministers General: Claire of Assisi. Franciscan Publishers, 1993. ASIN B000FNAEMG
• Flinders, Carol Lee. Enduring Grace:Living Portraits of Seven Women Mystics. HarperSanFrancisco, 1993. ISBN 0-06-062645-3
• Ledoux, Claire Marie, and Colette Joly Dees. Clare of Assisi: Her Spirituality Revealed in Her Letters. Saint Anthony Messenger Press and Franciscan, 2002. ISBN 978-0867163681
• Nugent, Madelaine Pecor. Clare and Her Sisters:Lovers of the Poor Christ. Pauline Books and Media, 2003. ISBN 0-8198-1561-6

External links

• St. Clare of Assisi in Catholic Encyclopedia. www.newadvent.org. Retrieved June 4, 2007.
• Convent of the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration in Bautzen (German). www.netzwerk-eucharistie.de.vu. Retrieved June 4, 2007.
• St. Clare of Assisi. www.catholic.org. Retrieved June 4, 2007.
• Musical Theatre about St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi. www.mirrorsforeternity.com. Retrieved June 4, 2007.
• Saint Clare of Assisi, in Patron Saints Index. www.catholic-forum.com. Retrieved June 4, 2007.

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

• Clare of Assisi  ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

• History of "Clare of Assisi"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.