Clare of Assisi

St Clare (1194–1253) was born in Assisi in today’s Italy, and was one of Saint Francis of Assisi’s first followers.

         Clare was the eldest daughter of Favorino Sciffi, Count of Sasso-Rosso and his wife Ortolana. Tradition say that Clare's father was a wealthy representative of an ancient Roman family, who owned a large palace in Assisi and a castle on the slope of Mount Subasio. Clare’s mother came from the noble family of Fiumi, and was a very devout woman who had undertaken pilgrimages to Rome, Santiago de Compostela and the Holy Land. Later in life, Clare's mother Ortolana and sisters Beatrix and Catarina also entered the monastery.

      Clare was devoted to prayer as a child. Although the records are stubbornly silent, it is safe to assume that Clare’s family intended her to marry to continue the family line. At the age of 18, however, she heard Francis preach during a Lenten service in the church of San Giorgio at Assisi and asked him to help her to live after the manner of the Gospel. On the evening of Palm Sunday, 20 March 1212, she left her father’s house and, accompanied by her aunt and another companion, went to meet Francis. There, her hair was cut, and she exchanged her rich gown for a plain robe and veil.

      Francis placed Clare in the convent of the Benedictine nuns of San Paulo. Legend recounts how her father attempted to retrieve her by force but she clung to the altar, and threw aside her veil to show her cropped hair. She refused to return saying she would have no other husband than Jesus.

      Clare needed more solitude in which to pray so, a few days later, Francis sent her to a more secluded monastery of Benedictine nuns—Sant’ Angelo in Panzo.

Clare was soon joined by her sister Catarina. They remained with the Benedictines until a small house was built for them near the church of San Damiano, which Francis had repaired some years earlier.

      Other women joined them and the group grew swiftly. They lived a simple life of poverty, austerity and seclusion from the world, according to a Rule that Francis wrote. They were then known as the ‘Poor Ladies of San Damiano’. They were ‘poor’
because they wore no shoes, ate no meat, and kept silence except for times of worship. They relied on alms, which meant the difference between starvation and living. Their lives consisted of manual labour and prayer.

      San Damiano became the centre of Clare's new order. For a brief time, Francis himself directed this new order and, by 1216, Clare was its abbess. Clare grew so devoted to Francis that she was often referred to as ‘alter Franciscus’ (another Francis). She even wrote a new Rule of Life for the order, which makes it the first set of monastic guidelines known to have been written entirely by a woman. In her vision, her nuns were to be the Second Order of the new Franciscan order and were soon being called ‘the Poor Clares’.

      On 9 August 1253, the Pope approved Clare’s rule and she died two days later. She was 59 and was buried in the chapel of San Giorgio. She was canonised two years later.

      Soon after her death, the order she founded was renamed in her honour as the ‘Order of Saint Clare’ but to this day the older name of ‘Poor Clares’ is more widely used.

      The Church remembers St Clare on the anniversary of her death in 1253; so her feast day is 11 August.