THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH Her Doctrine and Morals Feast of St. Clare of Assisi 12 August 2012

The Sunday Sermon

At the beginning of the thirteenth century, when luxury and sensuality held sway, St. Francis of Assisi made his appearance, giving to the men the example of a poor and penitential life. But God wished also to give the vain and pleasure-loving women of that period an example of contempt of the world’s vanities. For this mission, He chose Clare, the daughter of a prominent and noble family of Assisi. Her father was Favorino Scifi, count of Sassorosso; her mother, the servant of God Hortulana, who died in the odor of sanctity.

She was eighteen years old when she heard St. Francis preach in the cathedral of Assisi in Lent of 1212. His words on contempt of the world and on penance, and particularly the holy example he set, so earnestly affected Clare, that she conferred with him and soon recognized that God was calling her to lead a life similar to his in the seclusion of a convent. She did not hesitate to carry out God’s plans. Realizing that her family, intent only on a brilliant future for her in the world, would oppose her vocation in every way, she had to leave home in secret.

On Palm Sunday she went to church, dressed in her richest garments, to attend divine services. That night, attended by an elderly relative, she went to the little chapel of St. Mary of the Angels, where St. Francis and his brethren came to meet her with lighted candles in their hands. Before the altar she removed her beautiful head-dress, then St. Francis cut off her hair and covered her head with a veil of common linen. In place of rich garments, she received a coarse penitential garb and was girded with a white cord. This was the way in which the mother and founder of the Poor Clares was invested on March 19, 1212. For the time being, St. Francis placed her in a convent of Benedictine sisters.

When Clare had successfully overcome the great opposition of her family, who had intended to force her to return home, her sister Agnes joined her in her sacrifice. St. Francis arranged a little convent for them near the church of St. Damian. There the number of consecrated virgins soon increased. They served God in great poverty, strict penance, and complete seclusion from the world according to a rule which our Seraphic Father gave them as his Second Order. Clare was obliged in obedience to accept the office of abbess and to continue in it for forty-one years until her death. But her love for humility found compensation in the performance of the lowliest services toward her sisters. In spite of her great physical sufferings, she gave her sisters the grandest example of zeal in penance and prayer. In the year 1240 an army of Saracens who were in the service of Emperor Frederick II drew near Assisi. They rushed upon the little convent of St. Damian that lay outside the city and had already scaled the walls of the monastery. In mortal fear the sisters had recourse to their mother, who was ill in bed.

The saint, carrying the pyx containing the most Blessed Sacrament, had herself conveyed to the convent gate. There she pleaded fervently with the Lord of heaven in the words of the Psalmist (Ps. 73:19): “Deliver not up to beasts the souls that confess to thee, and shield thy servants whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood.” A mysterious voice issued from the Host, which said: “I shall always watch over you.” Immediately panic seized the besiegers. A ray of brilliant light which emanated from the Blessed Sacrament had dazzled them. They fell down from the walls and fled from the place. The convent was saved and the town of Assisi was spared.

After many years of uninterrupted sufferings, Clare felt that her end was drawing nigh. When she had received the last sacraments, she and one of her sisters beheld the Queen of Virgins coming with a great escort to meet the spouse of her Divine Son. On August 11, 1253, she entered into the joys of eternity, and on the following day her body was buried. Pope Alexander IV canonized her already in the year 1255. Consider what happiness St. Clare found even here on earth in her life of seclusion. This did not consist in material comfort, nor even in continual spiritual consolation, but in sacrifices made for God, by which she became ever more intimately united with the Source of all happiness. She once said to a young girl: “Our alliance is arrived at by self-denial and the renunciation of earthly things, by the crucifixion of the body and the sacrifice of the will, but the joys attached to it are eternal, the bond is indissoluble, it begins in the world, death puts the final seal to it.” In the morning of her dying day she received the holy Viaticum; in the afternoon, Pope Innocent IV paid her a visit and gave her the general absolution. But Clare felt happier at having received the Lord of heaven in Holy Communion than at having been honored by a visit from the pope. May we, too, become indifferent to all earthly glory so that we may be permitted to enjoy the eternal.