Patron saint of television, telecommunications, laundry workers, the glaziers and the embroiderers.

Saint Clare of Assisi is represented in Christian iconography with several characteristic elements. She often appears dressed in the Poor Clare habit, which is a simple tunic and a white cap covering her head. She usually carries in her hands a book, which represents her writings and her life of prayer and contemplation, or a monstrance, remembering the miracle in which she defended her convent from Saracen invaders by showing the Eucharist.

Santa Clara and the city of Assisi

On a graceful hill in the beautiful Italian valley of Spoleto, rises the city of Assisi, illustrious not only for its artists, but mainly for its two great Saints: Francis and Clare, who have contributed to its great renown.

Clare was born in Assisi at the end of the 12th century. His life takes place between these two dates, that of his birth in 1194 and that of his death on August 11, 1253.

His parents were called Favarone de Offreduccio and Hortulana. Both from noble and wealthy families. When Hortulana saw that she was going to be a mother, she went to pray at the Cathedral and begged the Lord insistently to free her from the dangers of childbirth, and then she thought she heard a mysterious voice telling her: “Do not tremble, woman; because from you a light will be born that will greatly illuminate the world” This was the reason for baptizing the girl who was born on July 16 of the already mentioned year 1194 with the name Clara.

One of the witnesses declared under oath in the process of her canonization: “That he met Clara, when she was a child in her parents' house; and she was a virgin, and from her earliest age she began to dedicate herself to holy works, as if she had been sanctified in her mother's womb. And since she was beautiful in face, they tried to give her a husband; and many of his relatives begged him to consent to marry; but she never agreed. And the witness himself had begged her many times to agree, and she did not even want to listen to him; rather, she preached to him the contempt of the world.”

Francis and Clara's vocation

Clara, from her early years, was seen inclined towards virtue. Her mother educated her with great care and instilled in her the love of prayer and works of charity. Witnesses of his life say that he liked to visit the sick and give alms to the poor.

When she listened to her mother, who had visited the Holy Land, and told her about the places where Jesus had suffered and had been crucified to redeem us, she became fond of penitence and even wore a small hair shirt under her fine, precious clothes.

It happened that one day in this environment in which he lived, he heard about Francisco, a young man who had become a beggar for love and was a zealous preacher, and he decided to go listen to him.

It should be noted that Clara had two other sisters, called Inés and Beatriz. Clara was usually accompanied by her little sister Inés and they both listened excitedly to Francisco's speeches; But Clara, upon seeing the life of extreme poverty and limitless charity, and also the inflamed words in the preaching and the contempt for the world of that preacher, had the desire to consecrate herself to God and renounce all the marriages that were proposed to her. , the desire to see Francisco grew in her, until one day when he was aware of the reputation of purity, charity and piety that surrounded Clara, they had a meeting, and as she expressed her desire to consecrate herself totally to God, she ended entrusting himself entirely to the advice of Francis and taking him “as a guide for his life after God.”

From then on, Francisco and Clare will be two souls immersed in a great ideal of holiness and evangelical life...

An anecdote that sounds like a prophecy

When Clara was thirteen years old, she went out, as if moved by the Spirit of God with her little sister Inés, to take a walk towards the small church of San Damiano, where they saw Francisco who had become a bricklayer for God. He had literally interpreted a voice from the Byzantine crucifix of that demolished church; the mysterious voice had told him:

“Francisco, go and repair my house, which, as you see, is falling to the ground.”

In those days, he had begged through the streets and squares for materials for reconstruction and like an airy volunteer beggar he recited his proclamation parodying the song of the troubadours:

—Whoever gives me a stone will get a reward; Whoever gives me two stones will get two prizes; "Whoever gives me more stones, the more prize he will get..."

Clara loved this beggar troubadour for his joy…, and she also understood that he truly offered more than he begged for: the reward of grace and heaven. That's why he influenced those at home to help him.

That day, then, Clara went there with Inés. When he saw those young girls, he climbed, as if inspired, quickly on the wall and began to shout happily in French:

“Come and help me in the work of this monastery of San Damiano, because in time some ladies will live there, through whose famous and holy life glory will be given to the Heavenly Father in all his holy Church.”

This prophetic call sounded and resonated in the hearts of Clara and Inés, and they would not forget it even as old women.

The Church of San Damiano and the Porziuncola

Francisco finished the work of San Damiano with some collaborators won out of sympathy, and then it was decided to repair a little chapel lost in the forest, which no one approached due to its remoteness and its ruinous state. They called it the Porziuncola, “the little portion” because of how small it was.

Furthermore, Francisco decided to restore it because of the great devotion he had to the Mother of God, to whom it was dedicated.

So, when Francisco worked with a small group of volunteer helpers, Clara secretly sent him some money through her most trusted friends, so that those workers without fortune or wages could eat meat.

He also increased, with the awareness of age, his generous almsgiving, in those years that were called “time of hunger”; She literally took the food out of her mouth, stored her food with skill, and made it reach the poorest through her good friend Bona.

A curious case is to see how Francisco had repaired San Damiano, which would be the cradle of Clara's foundation, and how Clara had helped him repair the Porziuncola, which would be the cradle of his foundation.

In these first steps, so definitive for both of them, their paths crossed: Francis began in San Damiano, before the crucifix, and ended in the Porziuncula before the Virgin Mother; Clara started in the Porziuncola and ended in San Damiano; but it was to travel the same path. Both would be great saints...

Clara's Conversion

Clare's conversion to a life of full holiness took place after hearing a sermon by Saint Francis of Assisi. In 1210, when she was 18 years old, Saint Francis preached Lent sermons in the cathedral of Assisi and insisted that to have full freedom to follow Jesus Christ one must free oneself from wealth and material goods. Upon hearing the words: “this is the favorable time… it is the time… the time has come to turn to Him who has been speaking to my heart for a long time… it is the time to choose, to choose…”, he felt a great confirmation of everything he had been experiencing inside.

Throughout the day and night, he meditated on those words that had penetrated the depths of his heart. That same night she made the decision to communicate this to Francisco and not to let any obstacle stop her from responding to the call of the Lord, depositing all her strength and fortitude in Him.

When his heart understood the bitterness, hatred, enmity and greed that moved men to war, he understood that this way of life was like the sharp sword that one day pierced the heart of Jesus. He did not want to have anything to do with that, he did not want any other Lord than the one who gave his life for all, the one who gives himself poorly in the Eucharist to feed us daily. He who in the darkness is the Light and who changes everything and can do everything, who is pure Love. A burning love and a desire to surrender to God in a total and radical way is reborn in her.

Clara knew that the fact of making this determination to follow Christ and, above all, to give her life to the vision revealed to Francis, was going to be the cause of great family opposition, since the mere fact of the presence of the Minor Brothers in Assisi was already questioning the traditional way of life and customs that kept the social strata and their privileges untouchable. It gave the poor hope of finding their dignity, while the rich understood that the Gospel well lived exposed their selfishness in contrast to the light of day. For Clara the challenge was very big. Being the first woman to follow him, her connection with Francisco could be misunderstood.

Clara's escape to the monastery

Clara already lived in the world with the thought of being all for God, being able to say that she lived in the world without being of the world.

Convinced that God was asking her to completely surrender to Him, in the style of Francis of Assisi, and after a well-matured and firmly made determination, she decided to renounce everything and say goodbye to the hopes of this world out of the ardent desire to imitate to Christ poor and crucified.

Once all things were prepared, he decided to flee his father's house; It would be Palm Sunday, March 18, 1212. On this day he went to the Cathedral. The bishop officiates, who, after distributing the bouquets, sees Clara standing in her place and without a palm, and to general surprise! he came up to where she was and placed the most luminous palm in her hands. Only he and Clara know its meaning in this gesture. She was the new wife of Jesus Christ.

Clara is aware of how upset her parents would be; but he has already planned his escape. God calls her. During the night and through a shutter, she escapes with her friend Pacifica from her house, and dressed as a bride dressed in the best dresses and jewelry, she arrives at the Porziuncola, where Francisco and his companions await her by the light of the torches; He gets rid of his jewelry, Francisco cuts his hair and imposes a rough sackcloth of penance on him..., and then he goes to the monastery of San Pablo de Bastia, where he will stay for a short time until settling permanently in San Damiano.

At dawn the next day, his parents find out about the escape. They showed up at the monastery and neither flattery nor threats could make her turn back from the path she had taken.

How did the Order of Saint Clare grow and multiply?

It is worth noting that the young women who met with Clare in San Damiano first called themselves “Ladies of the Poor,” and over time they received the name “Order of Saint Clare.”

The first fruits of San Damiano were Clara and her sister Inés. This, 16 days after her sister Clara's escape, also fled from her father's house with the clothes she was wearing...

When her parents found out about her absence, they sent several gentlemen to look for her, and not being able to convince her with flattery and kindness at first to return to her parents, they changed tactics, grabbed her by the hair, slapped and pushed her, until she A force caused her to remain motionless and they could not carry her away by force.

Her mother Hortulana, crying, told everyone: Leave them alone!… Later, an admirable thing! The prayers of Clara and Inés dragged the other sister Beatriz and her mother to enter the same monastery with them.

The new monastery of San Damiano would begin, therefore, with Clara and her sister Inés, who would be joined a few days later by Pacifica, the accomplice in Clara's escape, Bienvenida de Perusa and several others... then her sister Beatriz and Hortulana would be his mother…

In the first seven years of Clare's life five monasteries were founded, nine years later there were thirty. At the death of the founder there would be more than a hundred, more than 60 in Italy and about 40 in other nations. Currently there are more than 800.

Clara's path in her life

The path to follow for Clara would be none other than the one followed by Francisco. If “the path followed by Francis of Assisi was none other than that of an ardent and passionate love for Jesus crucified”, this would be his. His words are an echo of those of Francis: “It is necessary to love very much the love of those who have loved us very much.”

Clare repeats that Francis's life program will be her own, and if she then commits herself to a life of penance and poverty, it is as she says in chapter 6 of the Rule, "after the example and according to the doctrine of Saint Francis." and this is what he states from the first lines of his Testament:

“The Son of God has made a way for us, which, by word and example, our blessed Father Saint Francis, his true lover and imitator, has shown and taught us.”

Clara wants to be poor in the strictest sense, and this is the advice she gives to her nuns: “I beg and advise you to always live in this most holy life and poverty.”

Since she was named Mother of the Order, she wanted to be a living example of the vision she transmitted, always asking her daughters that everything that the Lord had revealed for the Order be lived to the fullest.

Always attentive to the needs of each of her daughters and revealing her tenderness and her motherly attention, they are memories that even after so much time prevail and are the richest treasure of those who are today her daughters, The Poor Clares.

St. Clara used to take on the most difficult jobs, and serve each person even in the least. Attentive to the smallest details and being a testimony of that mother's heart and that true response to the call and responsibility that the Lord had placed in her hands.

From the testimony of the same sisters who lived with her, it is known that many times, when it was very cold, she got up to cover her daughters and gave her blanket to those who were more delicate. Despite this, Clara cried because she felt that she was not mortifying her body enough.

When bread was needed for her daughters, she fasted smiling and if one of the sisters' sackcloth looked older she would change it by giving him hers. His entire life was a complete gift of love for service and mortification. Her great love for the Lord is an example that should permeate our hearts, her great firmness and determination to truly fulfill God's will for her.

He had great enthusiasm when performing all kinds of sacrifices and penances. Her joy in suffering for Christ was very evident and this is precisely what led her to be Saint Clare. This was the greatest example he gave to his daughters.

Humility shone greatly in Santa Clara and one of the greatest proofs of her humility was her way of life in the convent, always serving with her teachings, her care, her protection and her correction. He did not use the responsibility that the Lord had placed in his hands to impose or simply command in the name of the Lord. What she commanded her daughters she first carried out herself with complete perfection. She demanded more of herself than she asked of her sisters.

He did the most expensive jobs and gave love and protection to each of his daughters. He was looking for a way to wash the feet of those who arrived tired of begging for daily sustenance. She washed the sick and there was no job that she despised because she did everything with great love and supreme humility.

“On one occasion, after having washed the feet of one of the sisters, he wanted to kiss them. The sister, resisting that act of her founder, withdrew her foot and accidentally hit Clara in the face. Despite the bruise and the blood that had come from his nose, he tenderly took his sister's foot again and kissed it.”

The life of Prayer

For Saint Clare, prayer was joy, life; the source and spring of all graces, both for her and for the entire world. Prayer is the end of Religious life and its profession.

She used to spend several hours of the night in prayer to open her heart to the Lord and collect in her silence the Lord's words of love. Many times, during her time of prayer, she could be found covered in tears as she felt the great joy of adoration and the presence of the Lord in the Eucharist, or perhaps moved by great pain for sins, forgetfulness and ingratitude. own and men's.

He prostrated himself on the ground before the Lord and, as he meditated on the passion, tears flowed from the most intimate part of his heart. Many times the silence and solitude of his prayer were invaded by great disturbances from the devil. But her sisters testify that, when Clare left the oratory, her countenance radiated happiness and her words were so ardent that they moved and awakened in them that burning zeal and burning love for the Lord.

He made strong sacrifices for the forty-two years of his consecrated life. When they asked her if she did not exceed, she replied: These excesses are necessary for redemption, "Without the shedding of the Blood of Jesus on the Cross there would be no Salvation." She added: “There are some who do not pray or sacrifice; There are many who only live for the idolatry of the senses. There must be compensation. Someone must pray and sacrifice for those who don't. If this spiritual balance were not established, the earth would be destroyed by the evil one.” Santa Clara contributed generously to this balance.

Work and poverty.

Following the teachings and examples of her teacher Saint Francis, Saint Clare wanted her convents to have no wealth or income of any kind. And, although many times they offered him gifts of goods to ensure the future of his nuns, he did not want to accept them. To the Supreme Pontiff who offered him some income for his convent he wrote: “Holy Father: I beg you to absolve me and free me from all my sins, but do not absolve me or free me from the obligation I have to be poor as Jesus Christ was. ”. To those who told him that he had to think about the future, he responded with those words of Jesus: “My heavenly Father who feeds the birds of the field, will also know how to feed us.”

Although Clara had embraced poverty and alms came to San Damiano from generous hands, one must not believe that in their monastery they lived off stories, as they say, but that they also worked to provide food, keeping in mind the Benedictine motto. : “Ora et labora”, because you had to pray and work. And so it says in its Rule, n. 19.

“Those sisters to whom the Lord has given the grace of work, after the third hour, faithfully and devoutly engage in honest work of common use… fleeing from idleness…”

In case of need, trusting in Divine Providence, there would be no shortage of miracles.

Some of the miracles worked by Saint Clare

The Bull of canonization of Saint Clare summarizes some of her miracles like this:

“It once happened that there was not a drop of oil in the monastery. Having notified her brother to collect alms from them, she took a dagger, washed it, and placed it empty on the threshold, so that her brother could take it when he went out to alms; But this one, when trying to pick it up, found it—mercy of divine liberality full of oil.”

—“Again, there was only half a loaf for food for the sisters; She ordered them to cut it into pieces and distribute them; “And he who is the living bread and feeds the hungry multiplied the bread in the hands of the one who broke it, until he gave fifty portions—enough—which were distributed to the sisters, who were already sitting at the table.” .

Some of those made after his death were these:

“A man who could not walk because his leg was contracted, and who fell because he suffered from epilepsy, was taken to Clara's tomb; Once there, the leg made a clicking noise and the patient was cured of both illnesses.” Rheumatic patients, deformed people, epileptics and raging madmen have achieved their recovery there.

One, whose right hand had been crippled due to a violent blow, thus rendering it useless and unfit for any work, had his former ability restored by the merits of the saint. Another, blind for a long time, having had himself carried to his tomb, regained his sight there and returned without a guide.

Clare carrying the Blessed Sacrament drives away the Saracens

This historical case is well known in the miraculous world, how Clare saved her monastery from being desecrated by the Saracens or Mohammedan hordes who, in the service of the impious emperor of Germany, Frederick II, devastated the Papal States, destroying everything in their path.

When these enemies of the religion of Christ arrived in front of the monastery and were preparing to assault it, the nuns ran to take refuge, trembling with fear, around the bed of Clara who was lying sick. Then Clara, a strong woman, knows that in this decisive moment the only help can come from God, the Strong, the Powerful, the Invincible... She orders that the little ivory casket that presides over the main altar where the Blessed Sacrament is kept be brought to her quickly. and before Him he prayed saying: “Lord! Do not hand over your handmaids who trust in You and put their hope in You into the hands of your enemies."

She heard an inner voice that told her: “I keep you and I will always keep you.”

Clara's response, placing her trust in God, encouraged them saying: "Do not be afraid, because I promise you that you will not suffer any harm...". Then, taking the sacred chest in her hands, she appeared bearer of the holy monstrance, throne of the God of majesty, before whom heaven, earth and hell bend their knees, by the place where the Saracens were scaling the wall.

When she appeared, everyone stopped, unable to resist that sight, those who were scaling the walls falling to the ground and everyone fleeing in terror.

No one has ever been able to know what those unfortunate people saw, since it is only known that they fled as if they had seen something terrible.

Saint Clare, patron saint of television

Pope Pius XII in 1958 gave Saint Clare the title of *“Patron Saint of Television?” for having been a viewer of Bethlehem. It happened like this:

It was a Christmas party, a historic date in San Damiano. Clara was still ill and could not be taken to the church. It's time for midnight Christmas Eve. The sisters fervently celebrate the joyful and holy vigil; The only shame is that “his abbess and mother” is not there.

And what happened? She accompanies them from nearby, from her poor mattress lying on the bedroom floor; With his clear eyes of body and soul he contemplates the Mystery.

At the moment he thought about the liturgical celebration, his attic was transfigured, as if the angels of Bethlehem instantly changed that attic into a gigantic three-dimensional color projection television. Then Clara sees the Church of the Porziuncula, sees and hears the friars chanting joyfully, listens marvelously to the preaching and the devout singing. Clara watches the spectacle enthralled.

The televised function from the Porziuncula and that of the sisters in San Damiano lasted an equal amount of time. They rush up to tell their abbess and mother how well the function had gone... and she interrupts them saying:

““Sisters: blessed be the Lord Jesus Christ, who has not left me alone… Know that from here I have seen and heard the most beautiful function that our brothers celebrated in the Porziuncula, and I related it to you in great detail.

What Beatriz said about her sister Clara

Beatriz, Clara's full sister, made this sworn statement about her in the process of her canonization, and it is like a summary of her life:

Clare accepted the preaching of Saint Francis, and renounced the world and all earthly things and sold her entire inheritance and part of the inheritance of the witness and gave it to the poor. Then Francis tonsured her before the altar, in the church of the Virgin Mary, called the Porziuncola, and then took her to the church of San Pablo de las Abadeses. And since her relatives wanted to get her out of there, Clara grabbed the altar cloths and uncovered her head, showing it was shaved; and in no way did he want to access it, nor did he allow himself to be taken out of there, or return with them.

She stayed there for a short time and then was taken to the church of San Damiano, a place where the Lord gave her more sisters to govern, and in her government she conducted herself so holy and so prudently, and he performed so many miracles through her, that all The sisters and all those who knew and knew her consider her a saint.

Asked what Clare's holiness was, she answered: in virginity, in humility, in patience and affability, in sweet exhortations to her sisters, in assiduity in prayer, in abstinence and fasting, in harshness. of bed and clothing, in the contempt for it, in the fervor of the love of God, in the desire for martyrdom, and above all in the love of poverty.

Sister Beatriz said of Clara that she had cured some sisters with the sign of the cross and prayer, since she had seen them sick and then cured, and that God through her prayers defended the monastery from the Saracens...

Happy transit of Santa Clara

Another religious witness in the process of the canonization of the Saint. Sister Bienvenida, who had lived with her for 29 years, referring to what she witnessed the day before her death, said that Sister Clara, without anyone speaking to her, began to commend her soul saying: “Go in peace, because you will have a good escort; because he who created you infused the Holy Spirit into you; and then he took care of you like a mother takes care of her little son.”

And a sister, named Sister Anastasia, asked the saint who she was speaking to, and she answered: “I speak to my blessed soul.” And while the witness was entertaining herself thinking about the great and wonderful holiness of Saint Clare, she suddenly saw with the eyes of her body a great multitude of virgins, dressed in white with crowns on their heads, approaching...

In the middle of these virgins there was a taller one, more beautiful than all the others and with a larger crown was the Virgin Mary, and he covered her first on the bed with a very fine cloth, so fine that, due to its subtlety, the holy one could be seen. , even being covered with it. Then he bowed his face over the saint and they all disappeared.

Asked if the witness was awake or sleeping then, she answered that she is awake and wide awake.

The virgin Clare lived and died holy. The news of her transition to heaven moved the entire city and they flocked to her corpse, proclaiming her a saint. The next day the Pope and the Cardinals, who were in Assisi, also attended the funeral, and two years after her death she was solemnly canonized by Pope Alexander IV on September 26, 1255.

Ten famous phrases attributed to Saint Clare of Assisi for reflection.

1. “Totally love the One who totally gave himself for your love.”
2. “Never stray from the path of truth.”
3. “Let no fear make you afraid; no adversity stops you.”
4. “Burning with desire for eternal life, despising temporal things, the soul flies towards heaven.”
5. “Place your mind in the mirror of eternity; Place your soul in the splendor of glory.”
6. “Always stay in the presence of God.”
7. “Nothing the world loves and seeks is of greater value than the peace that Christ gives us.”
8. “Be like a lighted lamp in the house of the Lord.”
9. “Blessed be God, who has called us to live in his admirable light.”
10. “Love that cannot suffer is not worthy of the name.”

Prayer to our Lord through the intercession of Saint Clare to persevere on the path of holiness.

Almighty and Merciful God, who in your infinite goodness has given us Saint Clare of Assisi as a model of holiness and dedication, we humbly ask that, through her intercession, you grant us the grace to persevere on our personal path towards holiness.

May, inspired by the virtues that shone most in the life of Saint Clare, especially her humility, her ardent love for You and her detachment from worldly things, may we too live with unwavering faith and fervent charity.

Help us to follow his example of constant prayer, service to others and deep trust in your providence. May we, by placing our minds in the mirror of eternity and our souls in the splendor of your glory, find the strength to despise temporal things and fly towards heaven with the ardent desire for eternal life.

May his life inspire us to always seek your will and remain steadfast in our commitment to follow Christ with all our hearts.

We ask this through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Amen.