St. Clare: As soldiers scaled the walls of the convent, she met them with ciborium in hand and put them to flight
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St. Clare of Assisi Painting by Piero della Francesca
Cofoundress of the Order of Poor Ladies, or Clares, and first Abbess
of San Damiano; born at Assisi, 16 July, 1194; died there 11 August,
1253. She was the eldest daughter of Favorino Scifi, Count of
Sasso-Rosso, the wealthy representative of an ancient Roman family, who
owned a large palace in Assisi and a castle on the slope of Mount
Subasio. Such at least is the traditional account. Her mother, Blessed
Ortolana, belonged to the noble family of Fiumi and was conspicuous for
her zeal and piety. From her earliest years Clare seems to have been
endowed with the rarest virtues. As a child she was most devoted to
prayer and to practices of mortification, and as she passed into
girlhood her distaste for the world and her yearning for a more
spiritual life increased.
She was eighteen years of age when St. Francis came to preach the
Lenten course in the church of San Giorgio at Assisi. The inspired words
of the
Poverello kindled a flame in the heart of Clare; she
sought him out secretly and begged him to help her that she too might
live “after the manner of the holy Gospel”. St. Francis, who at once
recognized in Clare one of those chosen souls destined by God for great
things, and who also, doubtless, foresaw that many would follow her
example, promised to assist her. On Palm Sunday Clare, arrayed in all
her finery, attended high Mass at the cathedral, but when the others
pressed forward to the altar-rail to receive a branch of palm, she
remained in her place as if rapt in a dream. All eyes were upon the
young girl as the bishop descended from the sanctuary and placed the
palm in her hand. That was the last time the world beheld Clare. On the
night of the same day she secretly left her father’s house, by St.
Francis’s advice and, accompanied by her aunt Bianca and another
companion, proceeded to the humble chapel of the Porziuncula, where St.
Francis and his disciples met her with lights in their hands. Clare then
laid aside her rich dress, and St. Francis, having cut off her hair,
clothed her in a rough tunic and a thick veil, and in this way the young
heroine vowed herself to the service of Jesus Christ. This was 20
March, 1212.
“St. Francis and profession of St. Clare”, painting by Francisco João, 1692; Cathedral of Évora, Portugal
Clare was placed by St. Francis provisionally with the Benedictine
nuns of San Paolo, near Bastia, but her father, who had expected her to
make a splendid marriage, and who was furious at her secret flight, on
discovering her retreat, did his utmost to dissuade Clare from her
heroic proposals, and even tried to drag her home by force. But Clare
held her own with a firmness above her years, and Count Favorino was
finally obliged to leave her in peace. A few days later St. Francis, in
order to secure Clare the greater solitude she desired, transferred her
to Sant’ Angelo in Panzo, another monastery of the Benedictine nuns on
one of the flanks of Subasio. Here some sixteen days after her own
flight, Clare was joined by her younger sister Agnes, whom she was
instrumental in delivering from the persecution of their infuriated
relatives. Clare and her sister remained with the nuns at Sant’ Angelo
until they and the other fugitives from the world who had followed them
were established by St. Francis in a rude dwelling adjoining the poor
chapel of San Damiano, situated outside the town which he had to a great
extent rebuilt with his own hands, and which he now obtained from the
Benedictines as a permanent abode for his spiritual daughters. Thus was
founded the first community of the Order of Poor Ladies, or of Poor
Clares, as this second order of St. Francis came to be called.
In the beginning St. Clare and her companions had no written rule to follow beyond a very short
formula vitae
given them by St. Francis, and which may be found among his works. Some
years later, apparently in 1219, during St. Francis’s absence in the
East, Cardinal Ugolino, then protector of the order, afterwards Gregory
IX, drew up a written rule for the Clares at Monticelli, taking as a
basis the Rule of St. Benedict, retaining the fundamental points of the
latter and adding some special constitutions. This new rule, which, in
effect if not in intention, took away from the Clares the Franciscan
character of absolute poverty so dear to the heart of St. Francis and
made them for all practical purposes a congregation of Benedictines, was
approved by Honorius III (Bull, “Sacrosancta”, 9 Dec., 1219).
When Clare found that the new rule, though strict enough in other
respects, allowed the holding of property in common, she courageously
and successfully resisted the innovations of Ugolino as being entirely
opposed to the intentions of St. Francis. The latter had forbidden the
Poor Ladies, just as he had forbidden his friars to possess any worldly
goods even in common. Owning nothing, they were to depend entirety upon
what the Friars Minor could beg for them. This complete renunciation of
all property was however regarded by Ugolino as unpractical for
cloistered women. When, therefore, in 1228, he came to Assisi for the
canonization of St. Francis (having meanwhile ascended the pontifical
throne as Gregory IX), he visited St. Clare at San Damiano and pressed
her to so far deviate from the practice of poverty which had up to this
time obtained at San Damiano, as to accept some provision for the
unforeseen wants of the community. But Clare firmly refused. Gregory,
thinking that her refusal might be due to fear of violating the vow of
strict poverty she had taken, offered to absolve her from it. “Holy
Father, I crave for absolution from my sins”, replied Clare, “but I
desire not to be absolved from the obligation of following Jesus
Christ”.
Painting of St. Francis by Giovanni Da Milano
The heroic unworldliness of Clare filled the pope with admiration, as
his letters to her, still extant, bear eloquent witness, and he so far
gave way to her views as to grant her on 17 September, 1228, the
celebrated
Privilegium Paupertatis which some regard in the
light of a corrective of the Rule of 1219. The original autograph copy
of this unique “privilege”—the first one of its kind ever sought for, or
ever issued by the Holy See—is preserved in the archive at Santa Chiara
in Assisi. The text is as follows: “Gregory Bishop Servant of the
Servants of God. To our beloved daughters in Christ Clare and the other
handmaids of Christ dwelling together at the Church of San Damiano in
the Diocese of Assisi. Health and Apostolic benediction. It is evident
that the desire of consecrating yourselves to God alone has led you to
abandon every wish for temporal things. Wherefore, after having sold all
your goods and having distributed them among the poor, you propose to
have absolutely no possessions, in order to follow in all things the
example of Him Who became poor and Who is the way, the truth, and the
life. Neither does the want of necessary things deter you from such a
proposal, for the left arm of your Celestial Spouse is beneath your head
to sustain the infirmity of your body, which, according to the order of
charity, you have subjected to the law of the spirit. Finally, He who
feeds the birds of the air and who gives the lilies of the field their
raiment and their nourishment, will not leave you in want of clothing or
of food until He shall come Himself to minister to you in eternity
when, namely, the right hand of His consolations shall embrace you in
the plenitude of the Beatific Vision. Since, therefore, you have asked
for it, we confirm by Apostolic favor your resolution of the loftiest
poverty and by the authority of these present letters grant that you may
not be constrained by anyone to receive possessions. To no one,
therefore, be it allowed to infringe upon this page of our concession or
to oppose it with rash temerity. But if anyone shall presume to attempt
this, be it known to him that he shall incur the wrath of Almighty God
and his Blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul. Given at Perugia on the
fifteenth of the Kalends of October in the second year of our
Pontificate.”
Saint Clare
That St. Clare may have solicited a “privilege” similar to the foregoing at an earlier date and obtained it
vivâ voce,
is not improbable. Certain it is that after the death of Gregory IX
Clare had once more to contend for the principle of absolute poverty
prescribed by St. Francis, for Innocent IV would fain have given the
Clares a new and mitigated rule, and the firmness with which she held to
her way won over the pope. Finally, two days before her death,
Innocent, no doubt at the reiterated request of the dying abbess,
solemnly confirmed the definitive Rule of the Clares (Bull, “Solet
Annuere”, 9 August, 1253), and thus secured to them the precious
treasure of poverty which Clare, in imitation of St. Francis, had taken
for her portion from the beginning of her conversion. The author of this
latter rule, which is largely an adaptation
mutatis mutandis,
of the rule which St. Francis composed for the Friars Minor in 1223,
seems to have been Cardinal Rainaldo, Bishop of Ostia, and protector of
the order, afterwards Alexander IV, though it is most likely that St.
Clare herself had a hand in its compilation. Be this as it may, it can
no longer be maintained that St. Francis was in any sense the author of
this formal Rule of the Clares; he only gave to St. Clare and her
companions at the outset of their religious life the brief
formula vivendi already mentioned.
St. Clare, who in 1215 had, much against her will been made superior
at San Damiano by St. Francis, continued to rule there as abbess until
her death, in 1253, nearly forty years later. There is no good reason to
believe that she ever once went beyond the boundaries of San Damiano
during all that time. It need not, therefore, be wondered at if so
comparatively few details of St. Clare’s life in the cloister “hidden
with Christ in God”, have come down to us. We know that she became a
living copy of the poverty, the humility, and the mortification of St.
Francis; that she had a special devotion to the Holy Eucharist, and that
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.
The courtyard of the Convent of San Damiano, Assisi
Needless to add, that under St. Clare’s guidance the community of San
Damiano became the sanctuary of every virtue, a very nursery of saints.
Clare had the consolation 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
Clares far and wide throughout Europe. It would be difficult, moreover,
to estimate how much the silent influence of the gentle abbess did
towards guiding the women of medieval Italy to higher aims. In
particular, Clare threw around poverty that irresistible charm which
only women can communicate to religious or civic heroism, and she became
a most efficacious coadjutrix of St. Francis in promoting that spirit
of unworldliness which in the counsels of God, “was to bring about a
restoration of discipline in the Church and of morals and civilization
in the peoples of Western Europe”. Not the least important part of
Clare’s work was the aid and encouragement she gave St. Francis. It was
to her he turned when in doubt, and it was she who urged him to continue
his mission to the people at a time when he thought his vocation lay
rather in a life of contemplation.
Statues of St. Francis and St. Clare at the Monastery of San Antonio el Real, Segovia, Spain.
When in an attack of blindness and illness, St. Francis came for the
last time to visit San Damiano, Clare erected a little wattle hut for
him in an olive grove close to the monastery, and it was here that he
composed his glorious “Canticle of the Sun”. After St. Francis’s death
the procession which accompanied his remains from the Porziuncula to the
town stopped on the way at San Damiano in order that Clare and her
daughters might venerate the pierced hands and feet of him who had
formed them to the love of Christ crucified—a pathetic scene which
Giotto has commemorated in one of his loveliest frescoes. So far,
however, as Clare was concerned, St. Francis was always living, and
nothing is, perhaps, more striking in her after-life than her unswerving
loyalty to the ideals of the
Poverello, and the jealous care with which she clung to his rule and teaching.
When, in 1234, the army of Frederick II was devastating the valley of
Spoleto, the soldiers, preparatory to an assault upon Assisi, scaled
the walls of San Damiano by night, spreading terror among the community.
Clare, calmly rising from her sick bed, and taking the ciborium from
the little chapel adjoining her cell, proceeded to face the invaders at
an open window against which they had already placed a ladder. It is
related that, as she raised the Blessed Sacrament on high, the soldiers
who were about to enter the monastery fell backward as if dazzled, and
the others who were ready to follow them took flight. It is with
reference to this incident that St. Clare is generally represented in
art bearing a ciborium.
St Clare with the Scene of the Siege of Assisi Painted by Giuseppe Cesari.
When, some time later, a larger force returned to storm Assisi,
headed by the General Vitale di Aversa who had not been present at the
first attack, Clare, gathering her daughters about her, knelt with them
in earnest prayer that the town might be spared. Presently a furious
storm arose, scattering the tents of the soldiers in every direction,
and causing such a panic that they again took refuge in flight. The
gratitude of the Assisians, who with one accord attributed their
deliverance to Clare’s intercession, increased their love for the
“Seraphic Mother”. Clare had long been enshrined in the hearts of the
people, and their veneration became more apparent as, wasted by illness
and austerities, she drew towards her end. Brave and cheerful to the
last, in spite of her long and painful infirmities, Clare caused herself
to be raised in bed and, thus reclining, says her contemporary
biographer “she spun the finest thread for the purpose of having it
woven into the most delicate material from which she afterwards made
more than one hundred corporals, and, enclosing them in a silken burse,
ordered them to be given to the churches in the plain and on the
mountains of Assisi”.
St. Francis Mourned by St. Clare and her Community. Painted by Giotto di Bondone
When at length she felt the day of her death approaching, Clare,
calling her sorrowing religious around her, reminded them of the many
benefits they had received from God and exhorted them to persevere
faithfully in the observance of evangelical poverty. Pope Innocent IV
came from Perugia to visit the dying saint, who had already received the
last sacraments from the hands of Cardinal Rainaldo. Her own sister,
St. Agnes, had returned from Florence to console Clare in her last
illness; Leo, Angelo, and Juniper, three of the early companions of St.
Francis, were also present at the saint’s death-bed, and at St. Clare’s
request read aloud the Passion of Our Lord according to St. John, even
as they had done twenty-seven years before, when Francis lay dying at
the Porziuncula. At length before dawn on 11 August, 1253, the holy
foundress of the Poor Ladies passed peacefully away amid scenes which
her contemporary biographer has recorded with touching simplicity. The
pope, with his court, came to San Damiano for the saint’s funeral, which
partook rather of the nature of a triumphal procession.
The Death of St. Clare painted by Master of Heiligenkreuz, located at the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
The Clares desired to retain the body of their foundress among them
at San Damiano, but the magistrates of Assisi interfered and took
measures to secure for the town the venerated remains of her whose
prayers, as they all believed, had on two occasions saved it from
destruction. Clare’s miracles too were talked of far and wide. It was
not safe, the Assisians urged, to leave Clare’s body in a lonely spot
without the walls; it was only right, too, that Clare, “the chief rival
of the Blessed Francis in the observance of Gospel perfection”, should
also have a church in Assisi built in her honor. Meanwhile, Clare’s
remains were placed in the chapel of San Giorgio, where St. Francis’s
preaching had first touched her young heart, and where his own body had
likewise been interred pending the erection of the Basilica of San
Francesco. Two years later, 26 September, 1255, Clare was solemnly
canonized by Alexander IV, and not long afterwards the building of the
church of Santa Chiara, in honor of Assisi’s second great saint, was
begun under the direction of Filippo Campello, one of the foremost
architects of the time. On 3 October, 1260, Clare’s remains were
transferred from the chapel of San Giorgio and buried deep down in the
earth, under the high altar in the new church, far out of sight and
reach.
After having remained hidden for six centuries—like the remains of
St. Francis—and after much search had been made, Clare’s tomb was found
in 1850, to the great joy of the Assisians. On 23 September in that year
the coffin was unearthed and opened, the flesh and clothing of the
saint had been reduced to dust, but the skeleton was in a perfect state
of preservation. Finally, on the 29th of September, 1872, the saint’s
bones were transferred, with much pomp, by Archbishop Pecci, afterwards
Leo XIII, to the shrine, in the crypt at Santa Chiara, erected to
receive them, and where they may now be seen.
St. Claire of Assisi relics at Basilica di Santa Chiara.
The sources of the history of St. Clare at our disposal are few in number. They include (1) a
Testament attributed to the saint and some charming
Letters written by her to Blessed Agnes, Princess of Bohemia; (2) the
Rule of the Clares, and a certain number of early
Pontifical Bulls relating to the Order; (3) a contemporary
Biography,
written in 1256 by order of Alexander IV. This life, which is now
generally ascribed to Thomas of Celano, is the source from which St.
Clare’s subsequent biographers have derived most of their information.
PASCHAL ROBINSON (Catholic Encyclopedia)
