About Saint Clare

CLARE OF ASSISI

July 16, 1194 – August 11, 1253

Go forth in peace, for you have followed

the good road. Go forth without fear, for

he who created you has made you holy,

has always protected you, and loves you

as a mother. Blessed be you, my God,

for having created me.

Clare was born Chiara Offreduccio in Assisi, a

small town in Umbria. She was the beautiful

daughter of a count and a devoutly Christian

mother who had made pilgrimages to Rome,

Santiago de Compostela, and the Holy Land.

Clare was sixteen when her parents singled

out a wealthy young man for her to marry.

However, any hope of a marriage of aristocratic

comfort for Clare ended when she heard

Saint Francis preaching in the streets of Assisi.

Like Clare, Francis was from a noble family,

yet he had cast aside all material wealth for the

life of a mendicant. When Clare heard Francis

speak, she was filled with a desire to imitate him.

Shortly after their meeting, a bishop handed Clare

a palm on Palm Sunday. Clare took it as a sign

and ran away from her parent’s palace at night to join

Francis’s order. Francis cut her hair and gave her a

rough brown tunic to wear. From him she took the

veil of religious vocation at his newly founded

Church of Our Lady of the Angels in Assisi.

Clare founded the Order of Poor Ladies

(the Poor Clares) to compliment Francis’s order of

brothers. Throughout Europe, wherever Franciscans

established themselves, there too went the Poor Clares.

They ate no meat, wore no shoes, lived in modest houses,

and spent their days in prayer and silence. They depended

entirely on alms and their faith that charity would provide.

In art, Clare is usually shown with a monstrance. The

image alludes to the time when she warded off attackers to

her convent by standing at the gates, holding the Blessed

Sacrament aloft. In her last days, when she was too ill to

attend mass, Clare was said to have seen visions of the

ceremony on the walls of her cell. Thus Clare is known as

the patron of sore eyes.

Clare was canonized by Pope Alexander IV in 1255.

Lake Saint Claire and the Saint Claire River in the

Great Lakes region were named on her feast day in

1679 by French explorers.

Janet Hamill

Originally posted 7/16/07