If young people today knew what incredible treasures are hidden in the lives of the saints, they would end up seeing them as the only true models to follow. Compared with them, all today’s passing idols would pale, destined, as they already are, to be soon forgotten and replaced.

Clare, a young woman of Assisi and of noble birth, was about eighteen years old when, desiring to belong to Christ alone, she left her father’s house, refused her many suitors, and renounced all her possessions. Drawn by the example of Saint Francis, she embraced the evangelical way of life in the footsteps of the Lord and of His Most Holy Mother. She spent her whole life striving to imitate the love that flooded Mary’s heart and, before all else, chose to live wholly united to Him, as the Mother with her Son and as the Bride with her Bridegroom.

When she arrived at the Porziuncola, her long hair was cut, Clare put on a rough habit, and pronounced the vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty. Her young heart did not settle for a half-lived existence. She is a radiant example of authentic and total faith. Her life bears witness to the primacy of the interior life and to the desire to grasp its profound mystery. She bears witness to the joy of having finally found meaning, of having found the One who is alive and active within her. She left everything for that “hidden treasure”.

The Legend of her life recounts that her relatives, “having gathered together in a group, rushed in an attempt to achieve the impossible. They resorted to everything, violent force, poisonous plots, and flattering promises, in order to persuade her […]. But she, clinging tightly to the altar cloths, uncovered her shorn head, declaring that in no way would she allow herself to be torn from the service of Christ” (Legend of Saint Clare, ch. V).

Even in those moments, her imitation of the Virgin Mary did not fail. In spite of the unimaginable difficulties and hostilities that marked her life, Mary remained with her Son, fearless and resolute, always, courageously, even to the drama of Calvary.

Clare’s life was spent tirelessly within the little cloister of the monastery of San Damiano, in a joyful following of Christ poor and crucified. There the Saint founded the women’s Order of the “Poor Sisters”, later called the Poor Clares, accepting to become its abbess and obtaining from Gregory IX the “Privilege of Poverty”.

In the life of Saint Clare, therefore, the following of Christ, poor and crucified, and the following of Mary, one with her Son, are never separated.

Of her it is sung in the Hymn of First Vespers for her feast, “In total renunciation of earthly illusions, she follows the Virgin Mother to perfect union”.

She lived her whole life at the school of Mary and became “a perfect imitator” of her. She imitated her poverty, her fruitful virginity, her maternal and salvific mission at the foot of the Cross, and as a reward, in the final moments of her life, she received the gift of her consoling presence.

In the mystical contemplation of Christ poor, stripped of everything and entirely given, Clare could not but also immerse herself in the contemplation of His Mother, intimately associated with Him, poor with the Son and in the Son.

In the Rule that Clare wrote with her own hand, something absolutely exceptional at that time, she declares, “We observe forever the poverty and humility of Our Lord Jesus Christ and of His Most Holy Mother” (RsC XII, 13: FF 2820).

In her spiritual Testament she recalls how Saint Francis wanted the little flock of sisters, generated by his example in the womb of the Church, to be born precisely in order to imitate the poverty and humility of the Son and of His glorious Mother and this always and in all things, “for love of that Lord who, poor at His birth, was laid in a manger, poor He lived on earth, and naked He remained on the cross” (cf. FF 2841).

It is not difficult to imagine how the austere and extremely poor life of Saint Clare’s sisters was inspired by and resembled that of the Virgin Mary who, from the house of Nazareth, through the privations of Bethlehem and Egypt, up to the heights of Golgotha and, in her final years, in the house of Ephesus, lived stripped of everything, abandoned to the provident love of her divine Son.

Clare takes as her model above all the chastity and virginity of Mary. The vow of virginity enables her to imitate her. In the beautiful letter to Saint Agnes of Prague, written in 1238, she says, “Cling to His most sweet Mother, who bore such a Son that the heavens could not contain Him, and yet she received Him into the little cloister of her holy womb and carried Him in her virginal bosom. […] Thus, just as the glorious Virgin of virgins bore Christ materially in her womb, so you too, following in her footprints, especially those of His humility and poverty, can always, without any doubt, bear Him spiritually in your chaste and virginal body” (3LAg 18: FF 2890 and 2893).

Clare knows that the consecrated virgin, like Mary, is a mother and is invited to welcome within her littleness, within the narrow space that she is, the One whom the heavens cannot contain. She knows this and chooses to become fully a mother herself, bringing forth ever new children.

Many young women followed her example and continue to do so because she was a tender and loving mother, attentive until the end of her life. When illness came, it did not interrupt her love but intensified it. She continued to be for her sisters a wise guide and an example of truly evangelical life.

To her passionate love for Christ Crucified, Saint Clare always joins meditation on the sorrows of the Mother standing at the foot of the Cross. In fact, she writes to Ermentrude of Bruges, “Love with all your heart God and Jesus, His Son crucified for us sinners, and let the remembrance of Him never leave your mind. Meditate without ceasing on the mystery of the Cross and on the sorrows of the Mother” (cf. FF 2915).

Following her along the path of humility and poverty, Clare walks with the Virgin to the foot of the Cross, the spotless mirror in which she invites us to behold our own face and to contemplate the ineffable charity for which He willed to suffer and die (cf. 4LAg, FF 2904). But Mary is on the Cross too, crucified in her heart with her Son, and by looking at her, that radiant mirror, Clare also discovers her own mission, which is to suffer for the salvation of souls.

At the age of thirty, Clare began a long illness that left her infirm. It is said that, in her final moments, Clare, as she was dying, beheld a marvellous sight crowning all her sufferings. It was now evening, and Sister Benvenuta was keeping watch beside her. Suddenly Clare, “pierced by the dart of a profound sorrow, turned her gaze towards the door of the house, and behold, a company of virgins clothed in white entered. All bore golden crowns upon their heads. In their midst there advanced one more resplendent than the others. From the crown she wore upon her head there radiated such splendour that night itself within the house was turned into the light of day. She approached the little bed where the bride of the Son was lying and, bending lovingly over her, gave her a most sweet embrace. The virgins brought a mantle of extraordinary beauty and together spread it out, so that Clare’s body was wrapped in it, and thus the bridal bed was adorned” (LegsC 29, FF 3253).

She would die a few days later.

Thus, with Her most sweet Mother beside her, Clare left the earth and entered Heaven, where she could contemplate, no longer as in a mirror, the One whom she had loved so much and from whom, eternally loved, she received the fitting reward for having lived her young life in the service of the Gospel and of the Church.

Valeria Erbani

The Disciples of Virgin Mary and John the Apostle