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 (Clare), 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. Ortolana 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 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 town's wealthy daughter's coming out, 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 snuck out of her home through the back door. With the help of 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 a sign to her angry family that she would not go back home.

It seemed that Francis had no plan of where she should stay, so she stayed first with a nearby monastery of Benedictine nuns, San Paolo delle Abadesse and then into the community of Sant'Angelo in Panza on Mont Subasio. Her sister Agnes of Assisi also left her parents and angry relatives and followed her to Sant'Angelo. After 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 (also then known as the Order of San Damiano) where 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." and prayer.

As the first Franciscan nun, at eighteen, she needed to lead her convent, but only after three years of Francis' insistence would she accept to be the "mother" of the group, a mother at 21 years of age. She lead 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 made herself a living vessel of God's grace. She emptied herself of all desires, even the desire for food, sleep and warmth. Claire did jeopardize her health through excessive fasting in the early years. For decades, she couldn't even walk due to her weakness from fasting. Francis had to step in and convince her that mortification meant death not literally but to the world of desire.

Claire believed that everyone who followed this sacrificial life was called by God so she didn't need to urge others to follow her aesthetic practice. Her choice was a joyous embracing of living with Christ. Like a lover who doesn't feel the cold or hunger. Claire was 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 she puts expresses 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, we will find our own real selves. By drawing intimately close to God incarnate, we will discover our own unity with God, 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 is seen as a healer, both of body and mind, she is said to have even protected her convent from invading troops and the city of Assisi from an attacking army. Other miracles of "feeding" were attributed to her as well. Claire found holy poverty a source of great power in her work at the monastery. During the thirty 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, God would somehow provide for them.

The new Franciscan spirituality involved a passion of faith, evangelism to the poor and needy and a total rejection of the rich life of the Benedictine house. This created a tension between the old and new and Clare struggled with determination to maintain their lifestyle of rejecting all material possessions.

After Francis' death, Claire continued to promote the growth of her order, writing letters to abbesses in other parts of Europe and thwarting every attempt by each successive Pope to impose a Rule on her order which watered down the radical commitment to corporate poverty she had originally embraced. She did this 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 become a 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.

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 in 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.

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.

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