St Clare (1193-1253) founder of the Poor Clares and friend of St Francis
St
Clare of Assisi, while associated with St Francis, is a most inspiring
saint in her own right, with a great sense of her own dignity as a
woman. Unaffected by the power of bishops and popes, she insisted on
having her own rule approved despite enormous pressures.
Family of St Clare
Chiara (English: Clare)
Offreduccio was born in Assisi, 12 miles east of Perugia in the Italian
province of Umbria. She was the eldest daughter of an aristocratic
family: her father Favorino was Count of Sasso-Rosso and her mother
Ortolana was a devout woman who had been on pilgrimages to Rome,
Santiago de Compostela and the Holy Land; later on in her life, Ortolana
entered Clare's monastery.
The profound influence of Francis
Chiara would
have been a young girl when there was a civil war between aristocratic
and republican families in Assisi. She would have known Francesco
Bernadone though he was older than she was and he was of a republican
family. She would have known he was imprisoned in Perugia and that
later in the piazza before the cathedral he stripped off his clothes and
handed them back to his father renouncing his earthly heritage, saying:
"From now on I desire only to say 'Our Father who art in heaven'". All
this and Francis's early preaching about poverty made a profound
impression on Clare.
Becoming a Franciscan: cutting off her hair
When
she was about eighteen and her parents were making arrangements for her
to marry a wealthy young man, on Palm Sunday Clare by previous
arrangement with Francis, put on her best clothes and went to Mass. In
the evening after dark she changed into simpler clothes and went to
where Francis and the Friars were waiting for her at the Portiuncula
outside the city. Here Francis received her into religious life and cut
off her beautiful hair. At first he arranged for her to stay at a nearby
Benedictine monastery of nuns, San Paolo delle Abadesse. Her family
came to take her back, but Clare clung to the altar cloths and would not
go. As they grabbed her, she pulled off her veil and the shock of
seeing her bald head convinced them to leave her be.
San Damiano: a house of radical poverty
As the
Benedictine abbey would have been quite aristocratic, and not quite
suited to Clare's temperament, soon Francis arranged for her to go for a
short period to a house of female penitents, Sant'Angelo in Panza on
Monte Subasio. It was here that her younger sister Catherine, joined
her, taking the name Agnes in religion, but soon Francis moved them
again to the church of San Damiano, just outside the walls of Assisi.
This was the small church which Francis himself had rebuilt in response
to a vision. Here other women joined them, and San Damiano
became symbolic for its radical poverty and austere lifestyle. The women
were at first known as the "Poor Ladies". Francis, a deacon and never
ordained a priest, at first directed the order himself. Then in 1216,
Clare accepted the role of abbess of San Damiano. As abbess, Clare had
more authority to lead the order than when she was the prioress, having
to follow the orders of a priest directing the community.
Her own Rule - total poverty
When Francis set up
Clare's community of nuns, he did not give them a formal rule but only
guidelines for the religious life. But soon after that Cardinal Ugolino
dei Conti di Segni, a supporter of the Franciscans, who later became
Pope Gregory IX, gave them a rule which tried to bring them into the
mainstream of religious life. This rule made provision for the nuns to
own property and to make sure they had a regular income. However, this
was totally against the radical poverty that Clare wanted and she
stubbornly refused. Some time later when he became pope, Gregory IX drew
up the Privilegium Paupertatis, a document which gave the nuns
the privilege of poverty, allowing them to live entirely on alms. This
was not fully what Clare wanted, but it was an important concession. She
did not want it as a privilege, but written into her rule. It was only
when Clare lay on her deathbed that the new Pope Innocent IV came to San
Damiano personally and handed Clare a papal document, Solet Annuere, approving Clare's own rule. Clare kissed the document in appreciation.
Influence on others
Clare's clarity of mind and
the force of her spirit influenced her community and she helped set up
other monasteries in Italy, France and Germany. The sisters worked with
their hands, spinning and weaving to make cloths for the churches and
caring for the garden, but it wasn't a commercial venture. Clare wore a
hair shirt and fasted a lot, but later, when she became ill, she let go
of these practices. She was the prayerful servant and inspiration of the
other sisters, tending them when they were sick. She was in
correspondence with Agnes of Prague who set up her own community with a
similar radical poverty. But because of the severity of the life of her
community - bare feet, sleeping on the ground and speaking as little as
possible - others avoided them.
Miracle of the defence of Assisi
In 1244 the Holy
Roman Emperor Frederick II was at war with the pope. He marched an army
into Umbria and among his soldiers he had a large detachment of
Saracens to terror ise Christians. While Frederick's army besieged
Assisi, the Saracens headed for San Damiano. Clare carried the Blessed
Sacrament in a pyx or a monstrance to the wall of the convent asking God
to "defend those I cannot protect". She heard a voice answer, "I shall
always protect them". When she stood up, she saw the Saracens riding off
into the distance. She asked the sisters to pray that Assisi would be
spared and the next day the emperor too withdrew all his soldiers.
Patroness of television
In her later years Clare
was confined to bed and could not attend Mass. The sisters had all gone
off to Matins. Clare sighed, saying: "Look, Lord God. I have been left
here all alone with you". Then she began to hear the organ and the
Office and Mass and to see it on the wall of her room as if she was
present there herself. Probably with this miracle in mind Pope Pius XII
in 1958 proclaimed her patroness of television. It is interesting that
an American Poor Clare nun, Mother Angelica, founded what is probably
the foremost evangelising television networkin the world, the Eternal
Word Television Network (EWTN).
Death
When in the summer of 1253 Clare lay
dying, bishops and cardinals came to see her and the Friars sat at her
bedside reading the passion of Our Lord according to St John. She died
holding her papally approved rule in her hands. Pope Innocent IV who had
approved the rule was to say the Mass. When the friars and sisters
intoned the Requiem, he told them to sing the Mass of a Virgin
Saint instead. Everybody hesitated. That would be to publicly declare
her a saint. One of his cardinals advised the pope it would probably be
more prudent to sing the accustomed Requiem. He agreed, but the
process began immediately and she was canonised two years later. A new
basilica of St Clare was constructed and in 1260 her remains were
transferred to it. Her skeleton can be seen there today.
Later developments
Ten years after her death
(1263) Pope Urban IV promulgated another rule that did not have the
radical poverty option, so there have been two Poor Clare observances
from that time. See http://poorclare.org/blog/?page_id=4 Clare's biography written by Thomas of Celano, lost since the 16th century, was recently recovered.
Patron saint of television
In 1958 Pope Pius XII
designated Clare as the patron saint of television, on the basis that
when she was too ill to attend Mass, she had reportedly been able to see
and hear it on the wall of her room (Apostolic Letter 21.8.1958).