CLARE HAD TO FIGHT HARD TO PROTECT HER POVERTY
[Above: Simone Martini, Clare of Assisi—(1284–1344) The Yorck Project (2002) / Wikimedia]
CLARE WANTED to imitate the Lord’s poverty. Inspired by the simplicity of Francis of Assisi, she left an affluent life to follow her ideal. Immediately she faced opposition from her family. After she refused to return home, other women joined her and a movement was born, the second order of the Franciscans.
Later, influential churchmen and even popes, by whom poverty was not eagerly embraced, tried to convince her to abandon austerity. They offered to relieve her of her vows and give her and her “sisters” the privilege of ownership. She steadfastly refused.
Finally, on this day, 9 August 1253, two days before Clare’s death, Pope Innocent IV approved her rule of poverty for the “Poor Clares,” as the women were known.
The rule has twelve chapters setting forth the obedience, training, duties, and observances of the order. The sixth and eighth chapters outline the ideal of poverty. Chapter six read in part:
And since he [Francis] did not wish us at any time to fall away from that life of sublime poverty which we had embraced, nor those who came after us, on another occasion shortly before his death he wrote us his last wish, saying : “I, poor Brother Francis, desire to follow the life and poverty of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of His Holy Mother, and persevere in the same till death. And I pray you all, my sisters, and do counsel you, to live always in saintly poverty. And guard well lest any by doctrine or advice attempt to draw you away from it.”
The original bull “given at Assisi the 9th day of August, in the 11th year of our pontificate,” was lost until 1893. Then it was found wrapped inside one of Clare’s old habits. This is known as “the First Rule of St. Clare” because some of the other houses that emerged from the Clares operate under more lenient rules.
Despite their voluntarily limitations—or because of them—the Poor Clares have produced at least five women recognized as saints by the Catholic Church and close to twenty who are called “Blessed.”
—Dan Graves
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For more about Assisi (the town) and Clare, watch The Spirit of Assisi at RedeemTV.
Also available from Vision Video are these additional documentaries about Clare: Francis And Clare Of Assisi and St. Clare of Assisi and Poor Clares