Today, August 11, is the memorial of Saint Clare of Assisi.
Foundress of the Order of Poor Clares.
Patron saint of television.
Clare’s father was a count who died when she was a child. Her mother was the countess Blessed Orsolana. After hearing Saint Francis of Assisi preach in the streets, Clare confided to him her desire to live for God, and the two became close friends.
On Palm Sunday 1212, her bishop presented Clare with a palm, which she apparently took as a sign. With her cousin Pacifica, Clare ran away from her mother‘s palace during the night to enter religious life. She eventually took the veil from Saint Francis at the Church of Our Lady of the Angels in Assisi, Italy.
Clare founded the Order of Poor Ladies (Poor Clares) at San Damiano, and led it for 40 years. The Poor Clares depended on alms and on God’s providence. Clare’s mother and sisters later joined the order.
Clare loved music and well-composed sermons. Every day she meditated on the Passion of Jesus. 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 stopped.
Once when her convent was about to be attacked, Clare displayed the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance at the convent gates, and prayed before it; the attackers left, the house was saved. Her patronage of eyes and against their problems may have developed from her name which has overtones from clearness, brightness, brilliance – like healthy eyes.
Toward the end of her life, when she was too sick to attend Mass, an image of the Mass would be shown on the wall of her room; thus her patronage of television.
Clare died of natural causes at age 59 in 1253. “Blessed be You, O God, for having created me,” then she breathed her last. Pope Alexander IV canonized Clare in 1255.