Evensong at St Michael's, Woolmer Green: Revd. Diane Whittaker:

Saint Clare of Assisi

Readings: Song of Solomon 8, v6-7. John 15 v4-10

I thought I actually knew something about Clare of Assisi – after all she was closely associated with Francis, so there must be similarities, but whilst I’ve been reading for this sermon, I’ve realised what an interesting person she was. There is a tendency to think of her as a partner of St. Francis, but she was definitely a power to be reckoned with in her own right! In fact some writers feel that she captured the vision of a gospel of the poor Christ more closely than Francis!

Saint Clare of Assisi, or Chiara Offreduccio as she was originally called, was born sometime around 1194 – just at the end of the twelfth century and died on 11th August 1253. We still celebrate 11th August as her day.  She was born in Assisi, Umbria, as the eldest daughter of Favorino Scifi, Count of Sasso-Rosso and his wife Ortolana. Ortolana was a very devout woman who had undertaken pilgrimages to Rome, Santiago de Compostela and the Holy Land. Later on in her life, Ortolana entered Clare's monastery.

According to the stories about Clare, she was a very beautiful young lady, and would have been expected to make a great marriage. She was also very devout – presumably as a result of her mother’s influence – in itself this would be seen as a desirable virtue for a young lady, but Clare took her devotion to new heights! There are stories of her wearing a hair shirt underneath her beautiful clothes and of giving her food to the poor. How she met Francis is not recorded, but he was a member of a wealthy family who lived in Assisi and must have made quite a stir with his public rejection of life as a rich man’s son and his subsequent preaching of a gospel of poverty – following the example of Jesus and his disciples. She may well have heard him preaching in the Cathedral in Assisi. It is said that after a clandestine meeting with Francis, she decided that she wanted to join him in following a lifestyle of poverty – living a life similar to that led by Jesus and his disciples.

So on Palm Sunday in 1212, Clare escaped her home at night and sought refuge from St. Francis, who received her into religious life. The story has it that she met him and some of his followers at the church of Our Lady and all Angels, the Portiuncula. Here he heard her vows, cut her hair and clothed her in a very rough habit.

Some commentators feel that the period leading up to Clare’s reception into religious life was managed by Francis in conjunction with the local bishop. It would have been difficult for him to have managed the recruitment of someone from so prominent a family as Clare without some backing. Suffice it to say that her family was a trifle upset and even more so when her sister Agnes followed her into the monastery!

Clare lived for a very brief period in a nearby Benedictine monastery of nuns, San Paolo delle Abadesse, and then again for a short period at a house of female penitents, Sant'Angelo in Panza on Monte Subasio.  Clare and Agnes soon moved to the church of San Damiano, which Francis himself had rebuilt. Other women joined them there, and San Damiano became known for its radically austere lifestyle. The women were at first known as the "Poor Ladies".

I wonder whether Clare would probably have preferred to live a more mobile life, like that of the Franciscan brothers, but it was not possible for women – especially women of good class like those she attracted to her monastery to live such a lifestyle, so probably from a very early time, the Poor Ladies lived in an enclosed monastery. Not too long after the formation of Clare’s monastery, the church attempted to bestow some order on the women’s monasteries that were springing up and tried through a couple of generations of Popes to impose a Benedictine style rule of life on all of the women’s monasteries, including Clare’s. Unfortunately for Clare, this rule relaxed her ideas on poverty and also attempted to loosen the links they had with the Franciscan brothers. After a determined battle she achieved a change to the rule allowing both – especially for her monastery at San Damiano and that run by her sister Agnes.

It is said that Clare had an even more rigorous view of the requirements for a life of poverty than the Franciscans. The nuns within her order owned nothing, and relied upon the Friars to beg food for them. She had a constant battle with the church authorities to be allowed to live in complete poverty, declining all attempts to give the order property or wealth in any form.

After several attempts by the church to impose a rule on the San Damiano order, Clare eventually persuaded the Pope to ratify the rule that she wrote herself for her order – although the approval only came through just before she died. Enshrined within the rule of life was the commitment to poverty – the linchpin of Clare’s way of life, but also it also included a very enlightened view of monastery life – she treated the nuns in her order as if they were responsible adults in the same venture as herself and expected them to exercise judgment rather than slavishly obey the rule of life. When you think about it, she must have had a very persistent and strong personality in order to get her own way in such a masculine society!  The Poor Clares still exists as an order today, and the nuns still follow the rule of Clare. They still take a vow of poverty, although I expect that life is not quite so hand to mouth as it was in Clare’s day.

There is some discussion as to how much of Clare’s writing is actually attributable to her, but given the undoubted force of her personality, there is no reason to believe that she wasn’t capable of some fairly sophisticated theology. Her spirituality is probably best revealed in some letters that she wrote to Agnes of Prague, in which she instructs Agnes in the religious life of the order. For Clare, nothing is as important as her vow of poverty and her commitment to follow the poor Christ. Clare’s picture of Christ is of one who rejected wealth and came to save the poor and marginalised. She writes very much from the perspective of a woman, using feminine language and imagery. For her, becoming a nun meant that she was a bride of Christ and she embraced that whole-heartedly. The language she uses is one that a lover would use – as she writes to Agnes about their relationship with Christ –

“Thus you took a spouse of a more noble stock, who will keep your virginity ever unspotted and unsullied, the Lord Jesus Christ…

Whose embrace already holds you;
Who has adorned your breast with precious stones,
placed priceless pearls on your ears,
Surrounded you completely with blossoms
of spring time and sparkling gems
and placed on your head
a golden crown as a sign of your holiness.”

And this written by someone who had sworn an oath of poverty, dressed in a rough habit, went barefoot, with shorn hair and was often starving from the strict regime she disciplined herself to! The words seem to recollect the splendour both she and Agnes would have known in their lives before deciding to give all up to follow Christ – but as far as Clare is concerned, the rewards of living a life dedicated to Christ in poverty easily outweigh those physical splendours that she left behind.

Again she writes about poverty in these terms –


O blessed poverty
who bestows eternal riches
on those who love and embrace her!
O holy poverty,
God promises the kingdom of heaven
and beyond any doubt, reveals eternal glory
and blessed life to those who have and desire her!

Poverty is so special as a route to heaven because Jesus himself came in poverty and suffered all in order to reconcile us to God the Father.

The main goal of Clare’s spiritual life was to become one with Jesus Christ, to be grafted into him – which is why the reading about being grafted into the vine that is Jesus is one of those chosen for St Clare’s festival – it sums up her whole aim.

I’ll finish with one last quote from her letters:

Place your mind before the mirror of eternity!
Place your soul in the brilliance of glory!
Place your heart in the figure of the divine substance
and through contemplation,
transform your entire being into the image
of the Godhead itself,
so that you too may feel what feel
in tasting the hidden sweetness
that, from the beginning
God Himself has reserved for His lovers.