St. Claire of Assisi

Feast Day August 11th

Patron Saint of eye disease, goldsmiths, laundry, television, embroiders, good weather

The Lady Clare, “shining in name, more shining in life,” was born in the town of Assisi about the year 1193. She was eighteen years old when St. Francis, preaching the Lenten sermons at the church of St. George in Assisi, influenced her to change the whole course of her life. It is likely that a marriage not to her liking had been proposed, and she went secretly to see Friar Francis and asked him to help her to live “after the manner of the Holy Gospel.” Talking with him strengthened her desire to leave all worldly things behind and live for Christ. One evening she slipped away from her home and hurried through the woods to the chapel of the Portiuncula, where Francis was then living with his small community. He and his brethren had been at prayers before the altar and met her at the door with lighted tapers in their hands. Before the Blessed Virgin’s altar Clare laid off her fine cloak, Francis sheared her hair, and gave her his own penitential habit, a tunic of coarse cloth tied with a cord. Then, since as yet he had no nunnery, he took her at once for safety to the Benedictine convent of St. Paul, where she was affectionately welcomed.

When it was known at home what Clare had done, relatives and friends came to rescue her. She resisted valiantly and declared that Christ had called her to His service, she would have no other spouse, and the more they continued their persecutions the more steadfast she would become. Francis had her sent to the nunnery of Sant’ Angelo di Panzo, where her sister Agnes, a child of fourteen, joined her. Later he placed them in a small and humble house, adjacent to his beloved church of St. Damian, on the outskirts of Assisi, and in 1215, when Clare was about twenty-two, he appointed her superior and gave her his rule to live by. She was soon joined by her mother and several other women, to the number of sixteen. They had all felt the strong appeal of poverty and without regret gave up their titles and estates to become Clare’s humble disciples.

The “Poor Clares,” as they came to be known, practiced austerities which until then were unusual among women. They went barefoot, slept on the ground, observed a perpetual abstinence from meat, and spoke only when obliged to do so by necessity or charity. Francis and the brothers were to subsist on daily contributions from the people about them. Clare also followed this way of life. When she left home she had given what she had to the poor, retaining nothing for her own needs or those of the convent.

Clare governed the convent continuously from the day when Francis appointed her abbess until her death, a period of nearly forty years. Yet it was her desire always to be beneath all the rest, serving at table, tending the sick, washing and kissing the feet of the lay sisters when they returned footsore from begging. She would say. “I am yours, since I have given my will to God. It is no longer my own.” She would be the first to rise, ring the bell in the choir, and light the candles; she would come away from prayer with radiant face.

Clare performed her most famous of the miracles in 1240, in which she turned away an attack by Saracen soldiers who had broken into the convent cloister by showing them the Sacred Host in the Monstrance. Saint Clare, with a fearless heart, commanded her followers to lead her to the enemy, preceded by a silver and ivory case in which the Sacred Host was kept with great devotion. She spoke tearfully to her Christ: ‘Behold, my Lord, is it possible You want to deliver into the hands of pagans Your defenseless handmaids, whom I have taught out of love for You? I pray You, Lord, protect these Your handmaids whom I cannot now save by myself.’ Suddenly a voice like that of a child resounded in her ears from the tabernacle: ‘I will always protect you!’ Upon seeing the courage of the sisters, the Saracens took flight and fled back over the walls they had scaled, unnerved by the strength of she who prayed.

Saint Clare suffered serious illness for the last 27 years of her life. Her influence was such that popes, cardinals and bishops often came to consult her—though she never left the walls of San Damiano.

Sources:

_{https://www.ewtn.com/saintsHoly/saints/C/stclareofassisi.asp
https://www.franciscanmedia.org/st-clare-of-assisi/
https://saintclareofassisi.org/prayer-of-st-clare
https://www.ewtn.com/Devotionals/prayers/clare2.htm
http://www.yourcatholicguide.com/prayers-and-devotions/prayer-to-saint/powerful-prayer-to-st-clare-of-assisi.html}