Saint Clare, Virgin

Saint Clare was born at Assisi, in Umbria, in the year 1194, of a noble family. From her childhood she was devout and given to prayer and to charity toward the poor. As a young woman she heard the preaching of Saint Francis of Assisi, and her heart was kindled with the desire to forsake the world and to follow Christ in poverty as he did. On the night of Palm Sunday in the year 1212, she left her father’s house in secret and came to Saint Francis and his brethren at the little church of the Portiuncula, where she laid aside her rich garments, received a poor habit, and consecrated her virginity to God.

The Poor Ladies of Assisi

Saint Francis placed Clare for a time in the care of religious women, until a dwelling was given her beside the church of San Damiano, which Francis himself had repaired. There she was joined by her sister and, in time, by her mother and by many others, and there grew up the community of women known as the Poor Ladies, or, after her, the Poor Clares. Clare governed this community as abbess for many years, with humility and gentleness, serving her sisters and leading them by her own example in a life of prayer, fasting, manual labour, and silence.

Above all Saint Clare loved holy poverty, which she called her “privilege,” desiring that her community should possess nothing of its own but should depend wholly upon God. So firmly did she cleave to this ideal that she obtained from the Apostolic See the confirmation of her right to live without revenues or possessions, a thing then rarely granted. Her whole life was a striving after the poor and humble Christ.

Her devotion and her death

Saint Clare was renowned for her ardent devotion to the Most Holy Eucharist. The tradition handed down in her honour relates that, when enemies threatened the convent and the city, she had the Blessed Sacrament brought forth and, kneeling in prayer before it, obtained the deliverance of her sisters; and for this she is often shown bearing a monstrance. She bore a long illness with patience for many years, sustained by prayer, and she died at San Damiano on the eleventh of August, 1253. She was canonised but two years after her death.

The collect of her feast asks that, as we rejoice in the festival of blessed Clare, so we may be instructed in the affection of holy devotion. In her the Church honours a woman who, for love of Christ, left wealth and station to embrace poverty and prayer, and who founded a religious family that has borne witness through the centuries to the beauty of a hidden life given wholly to God.

Patronage

She is venerated as the foundress of the Poor Clares and is honoured as a patroness of those in enclosed religious life; she is invoked against sickness of the eyes and was later named patroness of television.