St. Clare

 Simone Martini - (Detail) St Clare and St Elizabeth of Hungary

ST. CLARE

Born July 16, 1194 - died August 11, 1253
Saint Day… August 11
Cofoundress of the Poor Clares
First Abbess of San Damiano
 
“Tasting the hidden sweetness.”

Clare was the eldest daughter of Favorino Scifi, Count of Sasso-Rosso, a very wealthy man who came from an ancient Roman family.  He owned a large palace in Assisi and a castle on Mount Subasio.  Clare’s mother Blessed Ortolana, was a member of the Fiumi family and was known for her zeal and piety.
 
As a young child, it appeared that Clare was blessed with the rarest virtues.  She was devoted to prayer and practices of mortification.  As Clare matured her distaste for the world and her desire for a more spiritual life increased.
 
When Clare was eighteen years of age, she heard Francis of Assisi preach a Lenten sermon in the Church of San Giorgio at Assisi.  The inspired words of Francis kindled a flame in the heart of Clare; so moved was she by his humility and joy, she sought out Francis and begged him to help her that she too might live “after the manner of the holy gospel”.   Francis immediately recognized Clare to be, one of those chosen souls destined by God for great things, he foresaw that many would follow her example, so he began the ritual of receiving her as one of his companions.  She removed her clothes and donned the sackcloth robe Francis gave her, and then tied it with a rope.  Next he cut her hair and she renounced her aristocratic family’s wealth and social position.  Clothed in her robe and a thick veil, the young heroine vowed herself to the service of Jesus Christ.  This was March 20th, 1212.
 
Francis placed Clare with the Benedictine nuns, at the Convent of San Paolo, near Bastia. Clare’s father, who had expected her to make a splendid marriage, became furious at her retreat and tried to drag her home by force.  Clare stood firm and Count Favorino was finally obliged to accept her decision and leave her in peace.
 
In order to secure Clare the greater solitude she desired, St. Francis, transferred her to Sant’Angelo in Panzo, another monastery of the Benedictine nuns in Subasio. Clare’s younger sister Agnes joined her and both remained with the nuns of Sant’Angelo until they, and other fugitives from the world who had followed them, were placed by St. Francis in a rude dwelling adjoining the poor chapel of San Damiano. This dwelling was situated outside the town which he had rebuilt with his own hands, and which he now obtained from the Benedictines as a permanent dwelling for his spiritual daughters. Thus was founded the first community of the Order of Poor Clares, as this second order of St. Francis came to be called.
 
Clare shared Francis’s passionate commitment to “Lady Poverty.” For her this meant literal poverty and insecurity. The Poor Clares practiced the strictest of poverty. They wore no shoes, stockings, or any other type of foot covering; they slept on the ground, ate no meat, practiced the rule of silence, and engaged in other physical austerities.  The Poor Clare’s rule of poverty was so severe that it was brought to the attention of the Pope. Her rule was relaxed by two Pope’s, but Clare petitioned Rome and just days before she died Pope Innocent IV sent her a copy of her rule embellished with the his approving seal, granting the Poor Clares, at San Damiano, the right to live in perpetual poverty without any fixed income. A notation on the document notes that Clare, in tearful joy, covered the parchment with kisses.
 
St. Clare was made superior at San Damiano by St. Francis in 1215 and continued to rule as abbess until her death, in 1253, nearly forty years later.  It is believed that she never went beyond the boundaries of San Damiano during that time. There are few details known about St. Clare’s life in the cloister “hidden with Christ in God”.  It is known that she became a living copy of the poverty, the humility, and the mortification of St. Francis.  She had a special devotion to the Holy Eucharist, and in order to increase her love for Christ crucified she learned by heart the Office of the Passion composed by St. Francis, and that during the time that remained to her after her devotional exercises she engaged in manual labor.  Under St. Clare’s guidance the community of San Damiano became the sanctuary of every virtue, a virtual nursery of saints.  Clare had the supreme pleasure not only of seeing her younger sister Beatrix, her mother Ortolana, and her faithful Aunt Bianca follow Agnes into the order, but also of witnessing the foundation of monasteries of Poor Clares throughout Europe.  St. Clare had a huge influence towards guiding the women “of her time” to higher goals.  St. Clare and St. Francis promoted the spirit of unworldliness, which was to bring about a restoration of discipline and morals in the Church and civilization of people living in Western Europe. 
 
Clare’s most important work, however, was the help and encouragement she gave St. Francis. It was commonly known in the region that Clare was the most faithful of all of Francis’ followers. Many stories reflect the loving bonds of friendship between them and the trust that Francis placed in her wisdom and counsel. It was Clare he turned to when in doubt, and it was she who encouraged him to continue his mission to the people when he thought his “calling” was a life of contemplation. During a period of depression, Francis camped out in a hut outside the convent at San Damiano and composed “The Canticle of Brother Sun.”  When Francis received the stigmata, Clare thoughtfully made him soft slippers to cover his wounded feet.
 
When Francis felt the approach of Sister Death, Clare suffered terribly at the thought she would not see him again, in this life. After Francis’s death the brothers brought his body to San Damiano for the Sisters to view. Thomas of Celano, records that at the sight of his poor lifeless body Clare was “filled with grief and wept aloud.”  Francis was canonized  a mere two years later. Clare lived on for another twenty-seven years dying at the age of sixty. Just before her death Clare wrote, she had worked and prayed for over forty years to be “transformed into the image of God through contemplation…in order to taste the hidden sweetness God has kept from the beginning for those who love him.”

by Cynthia Gunsolly, OFS
I have two excellent articles which I encourage you to peruse during your leisure time to become more acquainted with our beloved sister, Clare of Assisi.  As you may know, Clare was born around the year 1194 into a Medieval Patriarchal world, a world controlled by men- both within the immediate and extended families of origin (fathers and husbands) and within the Catholic Church's Hierarchy.  In a world governed by men, Clare was truly able to hold her own, even convincing Pope Innocent IV to approve her Privilege of Poverty (her forma vitae- form of life) for her and her sisters at San Damiano- two days before her death.  This was quite the feat considering the Papal's/Church's Hierarchy's desire and active plan of channeling the blossoming “women's religious movement” of the late 12 ^th and early 13 ^th Centuries into a more monastic enclosed/cloistered way of life.  Author Margaret Carney, OSF summed up the world Clare was born into quite succinctly, “The Third Crusade had been launched.  Celestine III was Pope in Rome.  Courtly literature was being born in the royal houses of western Europe.  New orders of hospitallers and knights followed the paths of the great merchant trade routes and the crusaders to the Holy Land.  [Clare's] father and mother belonged to what was described as one of the most noble and powerful families in Assisi.” ²  Margaret Carney, OSF depicts an excellent overview of young Clare's life, as she flees with her Noble family members to nearby Perugia when their beautiful Assisi home nestled upon Mount Subasio is threatened in the uprising of the Minores against the Majores of Assisi. ² Hopefully, I now have you thoroughly enticed and ready to begin reading the articles about our dear Clare- I promise you will not be disappointed!  I was especially taken with the way both Clare and Francis are referred to as “victims of war in Assisi- Clare on the one side and Francis on the other.”  The author goes on to set her readers firmly within the social and ecclesial context of the era- “Far away crusaders were sacking Constantinople, and closer to home young lay groups, fired by evangelical zeal, were taking the task of preaching the Gospel into their own hands, making the Hierarchy very nervous by doing so.” ²  The Church's Hierarchy seemed to have their hands full, as it convened the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, “hoping to stem the irregular tides of renewal and bring to a close the great Gregorian Reform.” ^1,2 It seems as though the Hierarchy did not understand the many facets of what they unilaterally approached (and attempted to address)  as a single “women's religious movement” which was actually “many novae religiones [which] flourished within a spirituality that shared common traits.” ¹   The Church Hierarchy viewed as more advantageous to place all woman religious into enclosed/cloistered monasteries.  You see, in a man's world, unattached woman (even those gathered together under one roof) needed to be cared for and protected- as well as controlled.  “The Holy See [was] trying to organize the various forms of women's religious life according to the norms that were well-defined and strongly influenced by the Cistercian tradition, to subject the monasteries directly to itself, and to define the new monasticism by the practice of strict enclosure, previously observed only by religious dedicated to eremetical life or reclusion.” ¹   I for one am glad that Our Lord blessed us with first Francis who told the Hierarchy not to speak to him of Benedict or Augustine, that God had shown him another path and then with Clare who stuck to her guns, determinedly resolute in following her mentor ( our beloved Seraphic Father) with the Privilege of Poverty for herself and her sisters and determined to be connected with the Friars Minor for material and spiritual support.
     
Maybe a little Vatican intrigue would be enticement enough for you to peruse the articles.  Even though Innocent III in 1207 had planned to design a universale coenobium that would affect all Roman nuns, it was Cardinal Hugolino of Ostia (ie: Cardinal protector of women religious- the Roman Curia) whose “idea was probably to carry out a kind of reform of women's monasticism, drawing especially from Benedictine and Cistercian spirituality, to which he was very close by reason of his formation.” ¹  Cardinal Hugolino, upon being elected to the Papacy as Gregory IX, began to heavily push for all women religious to be strictly enclosed in monasteries. { It's interesting to hypothesize what was occurring withing Our Lord's Church (ie: His people) at this time in History.  As the author states- “various expressions [of religious life] that manifested a sincere desire for spiritual renewal in the 12^th and 13^th Centuries.” ¹ It definitely sounds like the laity had taken their Faith into their own hands.  Both Clare's and Francis' way of life seemed to arise simultaneously out of a movement of laity who desired to draw closer to Our Lord at a time when the Catholic Hierarchy seemed to be not in tune with the needs of their flock.}  For Clare and her sisters at San Damiano, to be strictly enclosed would mean the loss of things most dear to Clare's heart- her desire for absolute poverty along with the probable loss of “the vital bond between San Damiano and the Friars Minor” ¹

 I wonder if Francis and his original companions ( the first members of the Order of Friars Minor) acted as a buffer ( Clare and her sisters were possibly under the care/protection of Francis and the original brothers) between the Papacy/Church Hierarchy in Rome and Clare and her sisters at San Damiano- “Clare and her community did not need to have permanent relations with Rome, since the Order of Friars Minor served in some ways as intermediary”, before Francis' death. ¹  Clare at 33, with the loss of her dear friend and the mentor of her way of life, Francis (due to his passing), may have begun to have a struggle on her hands with the Papacy/Church hierarchy attempting to bring San Damiano into the ranks of the cloistered Hugolinian monasteries ( by 1228 there were twenty Hugolinian monasteries established in central and northern Italy ¹).  Francis, who was in Clare's words-“after God her pillar and her consolation” ²  was where she would have gained support and probable strength to withstand Pope Gregory IX's desire to bring San Damiano into his fold of cloistered monasteries.  The Pontiff along with Cardinal Raynaldus, the new Roman Curia of the Hugolinian monasteries, arranged to meet with Clare while in Assisi in July 1228 during the canonization of Francis.  Pope Gregory IX along with Cardinal Raynaldus, tried to persuade Clare “to accept the forma vitae already granted by Hugolino to the monasteries he had founded, to place her community under the jurisdiction of Rome, and to abandon certain things proper to San Damiano, the first among these being absolute poverty.” ¹ “Depositions at the canonization process [of Clare] testify that Clare firmly rejected the invitation of the Pope and Cardinal Raynoldus to accept goods for her community- necessary if a monastery was to observe strict enclosure- goods that the Pope himself had probably offered her.” ¹   This pivotal ( in the history of San Damiano) meeting between Clare and the top Church Hierarchy in Rome “ended what we might call San Damiano's autonomy”, “the community of San Damiano was incorporated into the circle of Hugolinian monasteries, as Cardinal Raynaldus' letter of August 1228 testifies; on the other hand, the Pope had to confirm its [San Damiano's] “Franciscan” and “Clarian” distinctiveness.  This was the so-called Privilege of Poverty of September 1228.” ¹ San Damiano, now being numbered among the Hugolinian monasteries, still “continued to distinguish itself through the observance of the institutiones indicated by Francis and especially through the Privilege of Poverty” ¹- Clare had championed and won this victory for herself and her sisters living in community at San Damiano.

I'm hoping that I've already convinced you to read both articles concerning our spunky sister Clare, but just in case I haven't I wish to share a few additional occurrences within her life.  The first concerns a Papal Bull of September 1230- Quo elongati, one which Clare  reacted quite strongly to.  Before I share with you our dear sister's reaction ( one which surprised me- and as it seems surprised the Pope by his reaction) I need to tell you that the Franciscan Order had spread and grown by this time.  The next generation of Friars Minor, many being educated in Paris and Europe, had never met Francis or members of the original Friars Minors.  Something dealing with the essence of being Franciscan and of Fraternitus may have suffered from their not directly experiencing Francis' persona along with the original brothers of the Order.  The new Friar Minors didn't seem to have the closeness of the original group, many didn't want to be responsible for women's monasteries and some were working closely with the Papacy- Pope Gregory IX even referred to them as his “Soldiers of Christ”.  In May of 1230, the general chapter of the Order was held in Assisi.  When the brothers disagreed upon various questions, they decided to present them to Pope Gregory IX ( something I feel Francis would never have done)- one major point was “the need for papal permission for the brothers to accept the spiritual care of women's monasteries....The delegation sent to the Roman Curia consisted of clerics, among whom [were] Leo of Perego and Anthony of Padua.” ¹  Both of these Friars were aligned with Pope Gregory IX's legal/juridical way of thinking rather “than to what we might call an “Umbrian” sensibility, formed by direct contact with Francis.” ¹  In his papal bull, Pope Gregory IX responded “with regard to women's monasteries...only those brothers with the necessary permission from the Apostolic See might enter.” ¹ Clare's reaction (she “was visibly annoyed by the papal decisions” ¹) to the Papal bull was to evict those brothers living at the monastery “who went begging to obtain food for the sisters.” ¹  These same evicted brothers would have been providing spiritual direction to the sisters and fulfilling Sacramental duties as well (Mass, Eucharist and Reconciliation).  Clare won another battle with Pope Gregory IX- he “declared that the norms of Quo elongati did not apply to San Damiano.” ¹  She had realized that with Quo elongati saying the brothers needed papal permission to enter San Damiano, “then her monastery was for all practical purposes being absorbed into the Order of St. Damien” ¹ , as the Hugolinian monasteries were being called by this time.

 After Francis' passing, Brother Elias remained one of Clare's main supports.  Clare advised Agnes of Prague ( [Clare's] “most famous disciple” ¹) to follow Elias' counsel.  “It was with Clare and Elias, at least until 1239, that Agnes would bravely contend against [Pope] Gregory IX to be allowed to follow the lifestyle practiced at San Damiano.” ¹   Elias also played a key role in Agnes obtaining the Privilege of Poverty for her monastery in Prague, “although Gregory had granted it very reluctantly.” ¹  By 1253, “Clare was near death, but her Rule had finally been approved by Cardinal Raynaldus of Ostia, and she was soon to receive the long-awaited approval by the Pope.” “This Rule contained the directives of Francis most jealously guarded by Clare: the promise that San Damiano would always have the assistance of the Friars Minor, as though it were a house of the same Order, and the admonition to live in the strictest poverty.” ¹
 
Clare not only took on the Church's Hierarchy, she stood against secular Kings with her Eucharistic Lord- “in 1240,...North African mercenaries, the Saracens hired by Frederick II to war against Gregory IX, attacked San Damiano and again in 1241 when they attacked Assisi....the sparing of the sisters and of the city.” ² During both of these attacks, both San Damiano and Assisi were championed by Clare, holding our Eucharistic Lord within a Monstrance in front of her- that would have been a sight to behold!  So the next time that you are discussing Our Lord's presence in Eucharist with one of our Protestant brothers or sisters, relay to them the saving outcome of Clare and her sisters at San Damiano, not to mention an entire city saved when Our dear Lord was called upon for His help when the sisters of San Damiano and Assisi was being threatened!- I don't believe Assisi's army was anywhere in sight!

During late summer of 1253, Pope Innocent IV provided Clare with her heart's desire- “The bull Solet anneure with its papal confirmation of the [Clare's] Rule was dated Assisi, August 9, 1253.  It arrived at San Damiano the next day, and the day after that, Clare died.  The sisters, obviously aware of the importance Clare attached to the approval of the text, placed the Pope's letter in the tomb alongside the body of their mother.” ¹   It seemed as though, with the Pope's approval of her Rule of life and with it, the assurance of the continuance of the form of life which Francis had imparted to her, she could finally say goodbye to her sisters, leaving this world to begin eternal life with her beloved Lord.   
        
I will leave you with some interesting aspects of Clare and Francis' lives that Margaret Carney, OSF touched on in her article “In the last five years of Francis' life, Clare would see him create two editions of his Rule, resign as general [of the Order], stamp the imagination of Christendom forever with a crib at Greccio and receive the stigmata at LaVerna.” ²  I enjoyed Sr. Margaret's beautiful description of Clare's daily life- “years were calendared by the liturgy, the days punctuated by the Hours, by endless moments of work, spinning silk, weaving fabric, sewing, working to earn one's bread, serving neighbors who brought their sick and disconsolate to the sisters- and by incredible spiritual and apostolic solidarity with the Friars.  How many evenings did Clare sit by her window as the apricot sunlight evaporated out of the valley of Spoleto and the first stars peeked over the grey brow of Mount Subasio and say possibly one of two prayers?  The first, “Francis, how I wished you had lived to see this day”; the second, “Praised be Jesus Christ, Francis, that you did not live to see what I saw today.” ²  
  
One last beautiful aspect which I learned from Sr. Margaret's article was this: Francis, within his Canticle of the Creatures, “As he wrote of the stars that light the darkness he coined a word never before used in the Umbrian dialect.  He described the stars as clarite, a play on Clare's name.  She was the star who kept faith with him...” ²

Both our beloved Saints, Clare and Francis, had open hearts making for very fertile soil for Our dear Lord to bring His people back to Him- just look at what He started through them,  a beautiful Franciscan Movement which has lasted through more than 800 years!  Throughout the ages He has utilized men and women after His heart to work through- He does not need us, but He chooses to work through us.  He truly does beautiful things through hearts and minds which are turned toward/given to Him.  Both Clare and Francis are the bright Clarite that keeps our Franciscan family shining.  May you all enjoy Our dear Lord's peace and all good my beloved Franciscan family!

(1)  M.P. Alberzoni, “Clare of Assisi and Women's Franciscanism” in Greyfriars Review,
Vol. 17, No. 1, Pgs. 5- 38

(2)  M. Carney, OSF, “Introduction Clare of Assisi: A Life Unfolding” in Clare of Assisi: A Medieval and Modern Woman (St. Bonaventure: Franciscan Institute Publications, 1996), Pgs. 1-7.