"I, Clare, seedling of our Holy Father Francis ... "so he liked to call the Saint of Assisi.
It goes back perhaps to the tto ago that her mother was called Ortolana and therefore it was said that Clare had been cultivated by her as "a fruitful seedling in the garden of the Church." Sure it was Francis
to grow and mature, when the girl, yet eighteen, he fled from him to ask him to consecrate to the Lord, but there is no doubt that the first lymph Chiara absorbed by the mother, a woman of exceptional strength and sweetness.
The first biographer, Thomas of Celano , writes with delicacy that divine grace had to first soak the roots thoroughly (ie the mother) "in order that then twigs follow next copy of holiness."
And mother and daughter were so well embraced by the grace of God that Ortolana finish his life in the monastery of Clare, leaving lead to God, in his old age, the spiritual daughter Mother divenutale spiritually. Then the old
Ortolana tell softly to her sisters have always known of the fate of that child: when he was praying before a crucifix, the imminence of childbirth, for protection, es'era heard a voice inside that said, "you shall bring forth a light that fills the world." For this he called her Chiara! Chiara
childhood there were neither the sweetness nor the suffering.
The sweetness, because the memories of those years are all already filled with tenderness Franciscan: a sensitive compassion for the dispossessed, an early love for the Crucified One, a spontaneous joy of a girl during her prayers.
They said that after the prayer, the child had "a good smell of heaven."
But there was much suffering for his family when Clare was six years old, had to endure a long exile, in Perugia, together with other noble families who had unsuccessfully opposed the creation of the municipal government of Assisi.
was not until 1205, when Clare was twelve, that they could return home.
With the escapees returned to Assisi also prisoners of war, including a young bourgeois, brilliant and dissolute, who seemed to be mad in prison: Francesco di Pietro di Bernardone.
The inhabitants of the small town were immediately overwhelmed by its oddities: first, he had started to repair the old ruined church of San Damiano, where he spent long hours in prayer, then the public square - on trial before the bishop - had stripped of everything, relinquishing any form of inheritance and choosing live like a beggar. He shouted
not want to have another Father, but that of heaven. And the balconies of the palace of Clare, next to the cathedral, looked out in the piazza of San Rufino.
to grow and mature, when the girl, yet eighteen, he fled from him to ask him to consecrate to the Lord, but there is no doubt that the first lymph Chiara absorbed by the mother, a woman of exceptional strength and sweetness.
The first biographer, Thomas of Celano , writes with delicacy that divine grace had to first soak the roots thoroughly (ie the mother) "in order that then twigs follow next copy of holiness."
And mother and daughter were so well embraced by the grace of God that Ortolana finish his life in the monastery of Clare, leaving lead to God, in his old age, the spiritual daughter Mother divenutale spiritually. Then the old
Ortolana tell softly to her sisters have always known of the fate of that child: when he was praying before a crucifix, the imminence of childbirth, for protection, es'era heard a voice inside that said, "you shall bring forth a light that fills the world." For this he called her Chiara! Chiara
childhood there were neither the sweetness nor the suffering.
The sweetness, because the memories of those years are all already filled with tenderness Franciscan: a sensitive compassion for the dispossessed, an early love for the Crucified One, a spontaneous joy of a girl during her prayers.
They said that after the prayer, the child had "a good smell of heaven."
But there was much suffering for his family when Clare was six years old, had to endure a long exile, in Perugia, together with other noble families who had unsuccessfully opposed the creation of the municipal government of Assisi.
was not until 1205, when Clare was twelve, that they could return home.
With the escapees returned to Assisi also prisoners of war, including a young bourgeois, brilliant and dissolute, who seemed to be mad in prison: Francesco di Pietro di Bernardone.
The inhabitants of the small town were immediately overwhelmed by its oddities: first, he had started to repair the old ruined church of San Damiano, where he spent long hours in prayer, then the public square - on trial before the bishop - had stripped of everything, relinquishing any form of inheritance and choosing live like a beggar. He shouted
not want to have another Father, but that of heaven. And the balconies of the palace of Clare, next to the cathedral, looked out in the piazza of San Rufino.
Chiara says "by far" the adventure of the young Francis of Assisi, who had followed him. Among them was Rufinus, a cousin of Clare. They lived in the Porziuncola, near a chapel dedicated to Santa Maria degli Angeli. They worked with their hands, they lived on alms and they said that they would take care of lepers in the village of Rivotorto.
They started secret meetings between Clare and Francis. Dating wanted by both - Says the first biographer - because she was "eager to see and hear this man again," and he "struck by the wide fame of a young girl so full of grace, at least wanted to see her and talk to wrest the world ... that noble prey. "
secretly, accompanied by the closest friend, he went to Clare Francis.
was approaching the feast of Palm and Clare, with glowing heart, goes to Frank for advice: the girl has now decided to radically change their lives.
Francis Palms in order to approach a holiday, among the people, well dressed and adorned.
That day, in the Cathedral of Assisi, Clearly played an important omen.
When the time came when the noble maidens had to climb the altar to receive the prize from the hands of the bishop blessed, before the solemn procession, Clare remained absorbed in his place, probably lost in the contemplation of that divine dream that filled the heart.
He saw then the Bishop descended the altar steps, to come and bring the prize to the girl, then Clare knew that Christ was, through his Minister, to choose as his bride.
The following night she ran away from home, a secondary door to be seen: and here she is alone in the dark, get off quickly towards the hill of Assisi, Santa Maria Angels, where Francis is waiting.
After singing the praises of the morning, Francis cut her long blonde hair, cover them with a black veil covering her white dress and a girl with a poor habit and dark.
Today, we tend to imagine this as a nighttime episode romantic and sweet, in fact, Clare and Francis well knew that he had declared war on an entire city. If
had been traumatic and the first decision of Francis "leave the world," and even more if it had been one of the many young people who had followed him, what would happen now that even a noble girl and admired it carried away from the madness, opening a gap that no one could have more close? We
in 1212. In August of 1228 (when Clare asks to Pope Gregory IX the "privilege of poverty") will have been founded in Italy at least twenty five monasteries of Clares. And the death of Chiara, the monasteries around the world will be at least one hundred and thirty. But that night
Clara is alone, Francis quickly leads her into a convent of Benedictine nuns between Assisi and Perugia, where the girl asked for asylum.
Upon arrival they found the family kneeling at the foot of Clare, wrapped in that unseemly garment which made them tremble with indignation.
When relatives tried to dissuade her, first with flattery and then with violent threats, Clare makes a gesture that great and irreparable damage was immediately understood in medieval society. She takes off her veil and shaved her head awkwardly tells everyone that the girl now has "renounced the world," and meanwhile, stretches out his hand to cling to the altar cloth, a humble cling to the garments of Jesus
Now everyone knows that the Mother Church jealously defend the creature, as intangible property of Christ. And no one dares to lay his hand on her.
The first is to follow Clare Agnes, her sister. Then came the friends of Clare.
Thus began the history of the "little poor women of San Damiano."
Francis got that first church he had rebuilt and were adapted to the monastery under the protection of the bishop.
He wrote for them the first "Formula vitae": more than a rule, a sort of document of alliance between the friars of Francis and the Sisters of Clare.
The nuns of San Damiano learned quickly not only the "mystical marriage" (the choice of a passionate Bridegroom Christ), but also the "mystic mother": they had to live every day the mystery of the Incarnation, used to be a "living crib" , a womb for the Son of God who asks to be born.
to be ready to make such a mystery that poverty was a prerequisite: "I do not want to have anything, if not our Lord. "
For this reason, Chiara repeatedly appealed to the Pope because he wanted to in writing, confirmed by the supreme authority, the privilege that his communities are always very poor.
Pope Gregory IX, in the first place, affectionately asked Clare to rethink the question of poverty, reminding her that life's circumstances were so many and many were the dangers of the world. A few have - if limited - would have better ensured their monasteries, assuring survival and freedom.
But Clare did not want to give up. Thus Gregory IX wrote in his own hand, the poor table of the refectory of San Damiano, the text of that strange privilege.
Before leaving for Rome, the Pope wanted to share the simple meal of nuns. A basket of bread was all they could offer, and forced the Pope to bless Chiara table.
And here, the gesture of her right under the eyes of the Pontiff, the crust of the bread is slightly opened, forming a cross well defined.
Life of St. Clare took place in total obedience to ones 'last wishes for the Sisters of Clare', which Frank said in 1226, before he died:
"little brother Francis I want to follow the life and poverty of our Lord Jesus Christ and his Holy Mother and to persevere in it until the end. And I pray you, my Lord, and I advise you to live always in this most holy life and poverty. And never look carefully from distancing from it in any way, for teaching or the advice of someone .
Monastic life was all steeped in this passion.
How to explain the severe penances of Clare, the prolonged fasting, his hair shirts are too high, the long nights spent in prayer prostrate on the ground for hours and hours, reserving for itself the most menial tasks and disgusting, wanting to kiss and wash muddy feet of the sisters who were returning from begging?
Yet no one ever saw her sad. "If it is true - Notes the reporter - a tough physical penance usually generates spiritual depression, the effect Chiara shone in very different: in every mortification maintained a semblance of joy. "
He was so strict with herself, she was so" benign and loving "with the nuns. He said that a superior must know "comfort the afflicted, and to be the last refuge of the tribulation."
"little brother Francis I want to follow the life and poverty of our Lord Jesus Christ and his Holy Mother and to persevere in it until the end. And I pray you, my Lord, and I advise you to live always in this most holy life and poverty. And never look carefully from distancing from it in any way, for teaching or the advice of someone .
Monastic life was all steeped in this passion.
How to explain the severe penances of Clare, the prolonged fasting, his hair shirts are too high, the long nights spent in prayer prostrate on the ground for hours and hours, reserving for itself the most menial tasks and disgusting, wanting to kiss and wash muddy feet of the sisters who were returning from begging?
Yet no one ever saw her sad. "If it is true - Notes the reporter - a tough physical penance usually generates spiritual depression, the effect Chiara shone in very different: in every mortification maintained a semblance of joy. "
He was so strict with herself, she was so" benign and loving "with the nuns. He said that a superior must know "comfort the afflicted, and to be the last refuge of the tribulation."
Famous is also the story of the assault of the mercenaries Saracens to the Monastery. He had hurled at Assisi, to spite the Pope, Frederick II.
The city had prepared the siege, but San Damiano outside the walls, and there is no to defend those "poor women." There are not even brothers and Francis was dead.
Chiara has long been ill, immobilized in his bed of straw poor, who have accepted out of obedience. The Holy
lead you outside the door of the monastery and in front of him is to put the silver casket that holds the Eucharist. Hardly
prostrate on the ground. When the cruel Saracens have already scaled the wall of the monastery, Claire touches with his hands the precious casket.
Pray: "Lord, you see these your servants, for I can not watch."
And the two sisters who claim Chiara hear the sweet voice of a child, from the Tabernacle, which says "I will always defend."
No one knows what happened. Suddenly, however, the Saracens retreated, not daring to approach the door where Clare prayed.
the evening of that day, she called the sisters and made them swear that she alive, would have never told anyone what he had heard.
Returning to the relationship that bound Clare and Francis, we must also remember that the famous Canticle of the Creatures Francis sang it for the first time in front of Clare.
Almost blind and feverish, his body now stigmatized, the Holy One of refugee was exceptionally in a cell of mats that his brothers had built in the garden the monastery.
He stayed there two months and Clare's Tess of the soft gloves to cover hands of those holy wounds, had also prepared an ointment herbs, to heal the bleeding wounds.
And one day the sisters heard him singing that's very sweet poem. A
Clare Francis confided that he had composed for the intimate joy of a night revelation. God had graciously assured him of all sins forgiven and that he could be certain of salvation. For this reason he had felt in peace and gratitude to all creatures!
Someone said he had thought naturally Clare, when he composed the verse
"Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon
and the stars have formed in the celu
clarified and precious and beautiful. " Clare Francis
survived twenty-seven years, all spent in defending the legacy and memory. His retirement was full of that tenderness which she had learned from him, and tenderness that was always first to the Holy Child in the manger, to the poor Christ Crucified and the Eucharist.
Clare was now old, but did not want to die before the Pope had finally confirmed, and sealed papal rule that she had written at the end of his experience.
was the first event in the history of the Church, a woman who wrote a rule for other women. It said it expected
only be able to kiss the seal, and the day after he died.
It was Pope Innocent IV. He entered in the poor moved cell.
"Holy Father," - said Chiara dying - 'I need to be forgiven of all my sins. "The Pope replied:" Would that I needed to lose as far as I have you. "
When he arrived the next day to deliver a cardinal implored the papal bull, Clare kissed her as he desired, and the day after he died.
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