Saint Clare

Clare Born at Assisi, Italy, on July 11, the daughter of the noble Faverone Offreduccio and Ortolanadi Fiumi, she refused to marry when she was twelve and was so impressed by a Lenten sermon of St. Francis in 1212 that she ran away from her home in Assisi on Palm Sunday and received the habit from Francis at the Portiuncula. Since Francis did not yet have a convent for women, he placed her in the Benedictine convent of St. Paul near Bastia. She resisted the forcible efforts by her family to remove her and bring her home and was moved by Francis to Sant' Angelo di Panzo convent, where she was soon joined by her sister, Agnes, fifteen, who also received the habit from Francis. Her father sent twelve armed men to bring Agnes back, but Clare's prayers rendered her so heavy they were unable to budge her and she remained.

In 1215, Clare moved to a house adjoining the church of St. Damiano, was made superior by Francis, and ruled the convent for forty years. The Poor Clares were thus founded, and Clare was soon after joined by her mother, another sister, Beatrice, three members of the famous Ubaldini family of Florence, and others. They adopted a rigid rule, practiced great mortifications and austerities, and took a vow of strict poverty--a vow that was to cause future difficulties. Clare obtained from Pope Innocent III a privilege guaranteeing their absolute poverty, and when Pope Gregory IX in 1228 tried to get the order to accept the ownership and income of land and buildings and offered to absolve Clare from her vow of absolute poverty, she was so convincing in a personal meeting with him that he granted the convents of San Damiano, Perugia, and Florence the privilegium paupertatis.

Other houses did accept the mitigation, which was the beginning of the two observances among the Poor Clares; when a formal modification of the rule was granted by Pope Urban IV in 1263 to these houses, they became known as Urbanists. In 1247, Pope Innocent IV again sanctioned the holding of property, and Clare's response was to draw up a rule based on that of Francis, enjoining absolute poverty; Innocent approved it two days before her death. The order flourished and spread to other parts of Italy and to France and Germany, and Clare's influence became such that she was consulted by Popes, cardinals, and bishops.

She was credited with many miracles, and in 1241 her prayers were credited with saving Assisi from the besieging soldiers of Emperor Frederick II. She, next to St. Francis, was most responsible for the growth and spread of the Franciscans. She died at Assisi on August 11, and was canonized two years later, in 1255. She is the patroness of television. (1194-1253)