Saint Clare of Assisi

Virgin, Foundress of the Poor Clares
(1194–1253)

Saint Clare was born on July 16, 1194, at Assisi in Umbria, the eldest daughter of a noble family. From her earliest years she showed a spirit of prayer and charity unusual in one of her rank and age. She heard Francis of Assisi preach during Lent of 1212 and was so moved by his words and his example that she resolved to give her life entirely to God in the manner he proposed. On the night of Palm Sunday 1212, at the age of eighteen, she slipped away from her family's palace and went to the little church of the Portiuncula where Francis and his brothers were gathered.

Francis cut off her hair and clothed her in a rough habit, and Clare was received into a life of radical Gospel poverty. She was placed for safety first with the Benedictine sisters of San Paolo delle Abbadesse and then at Sant'Angelo di Panzo, where her sister Catherine soon joined her. Francis then established the two sisters at the church of San Damiano below Assisi, and around this nucleus the community of the Poor Ladies, later called the Poor Clares, grew rapidly.

Clare governed this community for over forty years with wisdom and gentle authority, insisting above all on the privilege of poverty, the right to possess nothing either individually or communally, which she defended against repeated attempts by the papacy to grant the community a guaranteed income. This insistence on absolute poverty was the distinctive mark of her spirituality, her sharing in the radical poverty of Christ crucified, which she had learned from Francis.

She was the first woman in history to write a Rule of life for a community of women, and this Rule received papal approval from Pope Innocent IV just two days before her death. She suffered severe illness for many years, confined to her bed for long periods, and it was during one of these illnesses that she is said to have seen on the wall of her cell a vision of the Christmas Mass being celebrated at the church of the Portiuncula, giving rise to her title as patroness of television. She died on August 11, 1253, and was canonised by Alexander IV in 1255. Her feast is celebrated on August 11th.