Mary’s Daughters of the Cloth…

CLARE of Assisi

Memorial

11 August (formerly 12 August)
23 September feast of the finding of her body
3 October feast of her first translation, celebrated within the Poor Clares

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Daughter of a count and countess… Her father died young. After hearing Saint Francis of Assisi preach in the streets, she confided to him her desire to live for God, the two became close friends. On Palm Sunday 1212 the bishop presented her with a palm, which she apparently took as a sign. Clare and her cousin Pacifica ran away from her mother’s palace during the night. She eventually took the veil of religious profession from Francis at the Church of Our Lady of the Angels in Assisi.

Founded the Order of Poor Ladies (Poor Clares) at San Damiano, and led it for 40 years. Everywhere the Franciscans established themselves throughout Europe, there also went the Poor Clares, depending solely on alms, forced to have complete faith on God to provide through people; a lack of land-based revenues was a new idea at the time. Clare’s mother and sisters later joined the order, and there are still thousands of members living lives of prayer in silence.

Clare loved music and well-composed sermons. She was humble, merciful, charming, optimistic, and chivalrous. She would get up late at night to tuck in her sisters who’d kicked off their covers. She daily meditated on the Passion. When she learned of the Franciscan martyrs in Morocco in 1221, she tried to go there to give her own life for God, but was restrained. Once when her convent was about to be attacked, she displayed the Sacrament in a monstrance at the convent gates, and prayed before it; the attackers left.

Toward the end of her life, when she was too ill to attend Mass, an image of the service would display on the wall of her cell; thus her patronage of television. She was ever the close friend and spiritual student of Francis, who apparently led her soul into the light.

Born

16 July 1194 at Assisi, Italy

Died

11 August 1253 of natural causes

Canonized

26 September 1255 by Pope Alexander IV

Name Meaning

bright; brilliant

Patronage

embroiderers; eye disease; eyes; gilders; goldsmiths; gold workers; good weather; laundry workers; needle workers; Santa Clara Indian Pueblo; telegraphs; telephones; television; television writers

Representation

host; monstrance; woman with a monstrance in her hand

Readings

Go forth in peace, for you have followed the good road. Go forth without fear, for he who created you has made you holy, has always protected you, and loves you as a mother. Blessed be you, my God, for having created me.

- Saint Clare of Assisi
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O wondrous blessed clarity of Clare!
In life she shone to a few;
after death she shines on the whole world!
On earth she was a clear light;
Now in heaven she is a brilliant sun.

O how great the vehemence of the
brilliance of this clarity!
On earth this light was indeed kept
within cloistered walls,
yet shed abroad its shining rays;
It was confined within a convent cell,
yet spread itself through the wide world.

- Pope Innocent IV

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He Christ is the splendor of eternal glory, “the brightness of eternal light, and the mirror without cloud.”

Behold, I say, the birth of this mirror. Behold Christ’s poverty even as he was laid in the manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes. What wondrous humility, what marvelous poverty! The King of angels, the Lord of heaven and earth resting in a manger! Look more deeply into the mirror and meditate on his humility, or simply on his poverty. Behold the many labors and sufferings he endured to redeem the human race. Then, in the depths of this very mirror, ponder his unspeakable love which caused him to suffer on the wood of the cross and to endure the most shameful kind of death. The mirror himself, from his position on the cross, warned passers-by to weigh carefully this act, as he said: “All of you who pass by this way, behold and see if there is any sorrow like mine.” Let us answer his cries and lamentations with one voice and one spirit: “I will be mindful and remember, and my soul will be consumed within me.”

from a letter to Blessed Agnes of Prague by Saint Clare of Assisi

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AGNES of Prague

Agnes of Bohemia

Memorial

2 March

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Princess, daughter of King Ottokar I (Ottocar) and Queen Constance of Bohemia… Relative of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary.

Educated by Cistercian nuns at Trebnitz; though she early perceived a call to religious life, Agnes was for years promised into a series of arranged marriages for political reasons. At age three she was promised to a prince named Boleslaus. When he died young, prior to the marriage, she was betrothed to Prince Henry, son of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. When Henry chose to marry another, young Agnes was betrothed to Emperor Frederick himself. With the help and intervention of Pope Gregory IX, Frederick was affronted, but released from her marriage obligations, acknowledging that he had lost her to the king of heaven.

She built a Franciscan hospital on land donated by her brother, King Wenceslaus I. She then established the Confraternity of the Crusadera of the Red Star to staff it and its related clinics. She later built a Franciscan friary, and in 1234, Poor Clare convent of Saint Saviour in Prague with the aid of five nuns sent by Clare of Assisi herself. Agnes entered the convent of Saint Saviour herself on Pentecost Sunday 1234, eventually became its abbess, and spent 50 years in the cloister.

Agnes was always free with her wealth in service of the poor. She enjoyed cooking for the other sisters, and mending the clothes of lepers. She had the gifts of healing and prophecy, and was given to ecstacies. Though they never met, she and Saint Clare of Assisi kept up an extensive correspondence for two decades, and some of the letters have survived to today.

More about Clare…

Clare was a beautiful Italian noblewoman who became the Foundress of an order of nuns now called “Poor Clares.” When she heard St. Francis of Assisi preach, her heart burned with a great desire to imitate Francis and to live a poor humble life for Jesus. So one evening, she ran away from home, and in a little chapel outside Assisi, gave herself to God. St. Francis cut off her hair and gave her a rough brown habit to wear, tied with a plain cord around her waist. Her parents tried in every way to make her return home, but Clare would not. Soon her sister, St. Agnes joined her, as well as other young women who wanted to be brides of Jesus, and live without any money.

St. Clare and her sisters wore no shoes, ate no meat, lived in a poor house, and kept silent most of the time. Yet they were very happy, because Our Lord was close to them all the time. Once, He saved them from a great danger in answer to St. Clare’s prayer. An army of rough soldiers came to attack Assisi and they planned to raid the convent first. Although very sick, St. Clare had herself carried to the wall and right there, where the enemies could see it, she had the Blessed Sacrament placed. Then on her knees, she begged God to save the Sisters. “O Lord, protect these Sisters whom I cannot protect now,” she prayed. A voice seemed to answer: “I will keep them always in My care.” At the same time a sudden fright struck the attackers and they fled as fast as they could.

St. Clare was sick and suffered great pains for many years, but she said that no pain could trouble her. So great was her joy in serving the Lord that she once exclaimed: “They say that we are too poor, but can a heart which possesses the infinite God be truly called poor?” We should remember this miracle of the Blessed Sacrament when in Church. Then we will pray with great Faith to Jesus in the Holy Eucharist: “Save me, O Lord, from every evil - of soul and body.” Her feast day is August 11.
From: Catholic Online.com

Email: info@saintfrancis.co.uk

A Little More about Francis

St. Francis’ Prayer For A Sick Animal
Heavenly Father,
you created all things for your glory
and made us stewards of this creature.
If it is your will, restore it to health and strength.
Blessed are you, Lord God,
and holy is your name for ever and ever. Amen.

St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals was born in 1182 at Assisi in Umbria to Piero Bernardone, a wealthy cloth merchant and Pica who it is thought originally came from the South of France. Baptized John, his father re-named him Francis as a token of his love of France. As a young man he is described as wordly, proud and vain although kind and affable and willing to give to the poor.

In the 12th and 13th centuries Italy consisted of several small states which frequently waged war upon each other. In 1201 Francis was involved in an attack upon Perugia, a town nearby. He was taken hostage and held in prison for months. In 1205 he was due to take part in an attack on Apulia when he had a dream in which God asked him who could do more, the servant or the master. Francis interpreted this as meaning that he had been serving the servant and not the master and abandoning dreams of becoming a knight returned to Assisi to care for the sick.

In 1206 whilst praying in a dilapidated church the cross spoke to him, asking that he repair the church so Francis took some of his father’s cloth and sold it giving the money to the priest to repair the church. His father imprisoned him in a cellar and eventually took him before the bishop. Francis renounced his father so that he may belong only to God. He abandoned his fine clothes, his possessions, his rights and the privileged life he had been living in order to help the sick and the lepers, and the derelicts and outcasts from society. He took on the clothing of a poor farmhand, the tunic which to this day is the trademark dress of the religious order he founded the Franciscans. Amen. Fiat!