The Porziuncola Project
The Life of Saint Clare of Assisi
St. Clare of Assisi
Clare of Assisi was born in 1193 to Favarone and Ortulana of the noble house of the Offreducio's. She has six uncles, the most popular among them was her uncle Monaldo, who appears to have become head of the family after the death of Clare's father. Clare had two sisters Agnes and Beatrice, both of whom, along with her mother, would join her at San Damianos. Clare's cousin Rufino was one of Saint Francis' first twelve disciples. Clare's family lived in the City of Assisi, their house adjoining to the Cathedral of San Rufino, where Clare and Francis were both baptized.
Part 1
When Clare was just a child, around the age of five, the merchant class, to whom St. Francis belonged, rebelled against the nobles and drove them out of Assisi. Clare's family fled to Perugia, a neighboring town and sworn enemy of Assisi. For four years the Offreducio family lived in Perugia preparing for a war with Assisi so that they could reclaim their homes. In 1207, at the Battle of Callostarda, Perugia and her alliances dealt a devastating blow to the Assisians. St. Francis took part in both the rebellion and the battle, it was due to the former that he spent a year in the Perugia prison. Since Ortana was a most charitable and caring woman, it is possible that she and Clare visited St. Francis and the other prisoners of war.
Clare's mother Ortalana was a very devout woman. She had made many pilgrimages to the Holy Land and other shrines. When she was pregnant with Clare and concerned for the future of her child, she heard an interior voice tell her that her child would be a light for the darkness of the world. That is why she named her "Clare" meaning "Light". Historical documents do not tell us of the day or conditions of Favarone's death. We only know that be the time Clare begins her vocation at eighteen her father has already passed. Ortalana, left widowed, will later join her daughters and become a Poor Lady of San Damiano Nun.
Part 2
Clare herself was a very devout child. She not only prayed with devotion but, under her soft and elegant garments, she wore a hair-shirt for penance. From her earliest memories she wanted to belong to Christ.
Clare was a stunningly beautiful girl and many men wanted her hand in marriage. Her mother and her uncle Manaldo arranged for her to marry Count Renieri. Clare, however, had already had her heart stirred by the preaching, example and form of poverty of St. Francis. She had many times stolen away with a companion in order to speak to him and to ask his discernment for her vocation. Her heart was on fire and set on being wedded to the poor and crucified Christ. Clare opened her heart to Bishop Guido of Assisi who assisted in her plan to elope.
On the feast of Palm Sunday, 1212, three years after St. Francis had founded the Friars Minor, Clare was attending Mass at the Cathedral of San Rufino. At the distribution of palms, the Bishop himself descended from the sanctuary and handed a palm directly to Clare. This was the signal that all was prepared and it would be that night that she would enter upon her vocation.
Well after dark, while all in the house were asleep, Clare, with super human strength unbarred the door used only to carry out the dead, signifying that she was now dead to the world. She quietly made her way down to the small little Church of San Damiano where St. Francis and his Friars were waiting. That night she laid aside her soft clothing and darned the poor and holy habit. St. Francis cut her hair as the sign of her consecration. Afterward she pronounced her vows. St. Francis, for his part, promised that he and the Friars would always care for Clare and her daughters.
Part 3
Clare speaks about this night as the moment of her "conversion", the night she forsook the world. We can also say that it is the night that the prophecy spoken by St. Francis in 1207, before he founded the Friars Minor, was fulfilled. During his rebuilding of San Damiano's, hanging from the scaffolding, St. Francis was heard to sing in French: "Come and help me repair this poor Church which shall give home to Poor Virgins who will glorify the Heavenly Father by their holy manner of life." Although it would not be until 1213 that Clare and her sisters came to dwell at San Damiano, she very much cherished this prophecy and recorded it in her Testament to her sisters.
When the vows ceremony ended, St. Francis took Clare to the Benedictine Monastery of San Paolo for her formation.
That evening of her conversion, Clare's uncle Manaldo had discovered Clare's roust. He and his brothers headed down to San Damiano before St. Francis and Clare could reach the Monastery of San Paolo. Uncle Manaldo angrily reproached Clare and demanded that she return home. Clare, ever confident in her vocation, unveiled her head and showed her uncle her cut her, signifying that she was now consecrated to God. Disappointed and enraged Manaldo returned to Assisi.
It would only be a short time later that Agnes, Clare's younger sister by a year or so, would also abandon the world and join her sister at San Paolo Monastery. This time Uncle Manaldo did not plan to return empty handed. Armed and escorted with strong men Manaldo made his way to San Paolo Monastery. The men grabbed Agnes, dragged her by her hair and physically abused her. Clare knelt in payer, suddenly Agnes became so heavy that none of the men could lift
Part 4
her. Manaldo had had enough. He raised his hand to deal her a mighty blow, Clare once again turned to prayer and Manaldo's arm fell limp, unusable. With his arm paralyzed and his cohorts to weak to raise a young girl from the ground, Manaldo and company left Agnes and Clare, never to harass them again. We are not sure when, but Manaldo would once again have to suffer the loss of family to this new way of life when his sister-in-law Ortalana and niece Beatrice, Clare's mother and sister, also abandoned the world to join Clare at San Damiano.
Around 1213, having been founded in 1212, Clare and her companions returned to San Damiano and founded their
first monastery. They were called: "The Poor Ladies of San Damianos".
It is often falsely believed that Clare wanted to live the active life similar to St. Francis. The truth of the matter is she always wanted the cloistered life. She relished the monastic life and once told her sisters: "To leave the cloister is to leave Christ". What she received from St. Francis was, among so many things, her intense love for holy poverty. Unlike other monasteries, Clare did not want the ownership of property, nor, whether it be land or items, anything more than what was necessary. They wanted a life of prayer, penance and poverty after the manner of Jesus Christ Who had "no where to lay His head". These women did not fear poverty, mortification or austerity. They knew the value of suffering and relied on the providence of their heavenly Father Who they knew would clothe and feed them, just as He does the flowers of the fields and the birds of the sky.
When Clare and her sisters had proven their strength, courage, fortitude and conviction St. Francis gave them a Rule of Life to follow and guide their daily living. Due to St. Francis' influence on Clare's vocation and the founding of the Poor Ladies of San Damiano, Clare refers to herself as St. Francis' "little plant". The Poor Ladies refer to him as "most blessed father Francis". They are the second Order founded by St. Francis, the first being the Friars Minor, and so they can truly be called "Daughters of Francis", "Sisters to the Friars Minor", and "Franciscan". As a matter of fact, as the most fervent of his disciples, Clare alone , above any of the Friars Minor, remained most faithful to St. Francis' ideals.
A Short Description of the Life of Saint Clare
"The Death of Saint Clare"
by: Church Militant
The Life of the Poor Ladies of San Damiano was one of prayer, penance and fraternity. They prayed in common the Divine Office eight times a day. The sisters who could not read prayed sets of the Our Father instead. They kept silent, relished their life of hiddenness and brought before the throne of their heavenly spouse Jesus Christ the prayers, petitions and needs of every souls. Their's was a gentle light of grace that illuminated, and illuminates still, the hearts of people across the globe.
The Fourth Lateran Council of the Church held in 1215, in which both St, Francis and St. Dominic participated, decreed, among other ordinances for Religious Orders, that any new Religious Order founded after 1210 had to accept a previous Rule of either Benedict, or Augustine or so on. Clare thought having founded the Poor Ladies in 1212, using the basics of the Rule of the Friars Minor, founded by St. Francis in 1209, she and her sisters would be exempt.
However, Cardinal Ugolino, Prefect for the Congregation of Religious, and Cardinal Protector of the Friars Minor, thought it best that all religious sisters Orders be unified in certain observances.
In the year 1219 Cardinal Ugolino imposed upon the Poor Ladies of San Damiano a Rule of Life based upon the Rule and traditions of the Benedictine nuns. Clare, being an obedient and yet faithful daughter of poverty, accepted the Rule with exception. She was bereaved by it's failure to include the poverty so beloved by her and her sisters. In it's simplicity and beauty it betrayed the very charism planted within her heart by her most beloved father Francis. Her petitions to follow the poverty and life given to her by Christ through St. Francis was relentless.
In 1228, St. Francis having been dead two years and a now canonized Saint of the Church and Cardinal Ugolino now Pope Gregory IX, Clare received from His Holiness a Decree of the Privilege of Poverty. This document gave her and her sisters everywhere to follow the blessed poverty that they had so earnestly desired and faithfully followed, despite the Rule of 1219.
In 1247 Pope Innocent IV gave Clare yet another Rule. This too was not to her heart. Persistent as always, Clare never tired of petitioning the Holy Father for a Rule that reflected the charism planted in her heart. So in 1253 Clare did something bold, attempting to do what no woman and ever attempted to do before, write her own Rule. On August 9th 1253, Clare received the Papal approval of her Rule of Life, the first ever to have been written by a woman.
On August 11th, clenching the newly approved Rule in her hands, Clare gave her soul over to God. At the time of Clare's death, one sister reported beholding Our Lady coming escorted by a train of holy virgins. When the Blessed Mother reached St. Clare she bent down to kiss her. At that moment the sister could not tell the difference between Our Lady and St. Clare, so much did Clare come to be an image of Our Lady. Because of this, and Clare's consistent reflection of the most loving Queen of Heaven's charity and kindness, she is often referred to as "The Footprint of Our Lady".
Pope Innocent IV himself celebrated Clare's funeral Mass. He had the mind to canonize her at her funeral Mass but was convinced by his Cardinals to wait. She was buried in the Church of San Giorgios, where St. Francis first lay in-tombed. Her un-currupt body remains there and it is now known as the Basilica of Saint Clare.
Pope Innocent IV, convinced of the sanctity of Saint Clare, could wait no longer, eleven moths after her death, in the year 1254, he canonized her. Her canonization process remains the shortest in Church history.