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The saints

St Clare of Assisi

An eighteen-year-old noblewoman slipped out of her house by night to follow Francis.

Feast: 11 August · 1194 to 1253 · Assisi, Italy

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The small stone church and convent of San Damiano near Assisi, with a brick arcade and a little bell tower.

Fczarnowski, 2022. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Home / The saints / St Clare of Assisi

Assisi, Palm Sunday, 20 March 1212

A young noblewoman leaves her family’s house in secret and walks through the dark to the little church of the Portiuncula.1

There Francis and his brothers cut her hair and give her a rough habit.1

Her father had planned a splendid marriage for her. He came to drag her home by force.

01St Clare of Assisi

San Damiano

She refused to go, and about sixteen days later her younger sister Agnes joined her.1

Francis settled them at San Damiano, the chapel he had rebuilt with his own hands, and there Clare lived for over forty years.1

The small stone church and convent of San Damiano near Assisi, with a brick arcade and a little bell tower.
San Damiano, below Assisi, where Clare lived and died. Fczarnowski, 2022. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

02St Clare of Assisi

The privilege of poverty

She fought for years for the right of her sisters to own nothing at all, and two days before her death Pope Innocent IV confirmed her rule.1

Most people fight for security. Clare fought, against popes and bishops who meant well, for the freedom to have none.

Notes

  1. Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), “St. Clare of Assisi”. New Advent edition. newadvent.org

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: Douay-Rheims, Challoner revision (public domain). Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an error.