St. Clare of Assisi

Homily for the Feast of St. Clare

The Feast of St. Clare of Assisi was inserted into the Roman calendar on September 26, 1255, the very date of her canonization. Her canonization was the first time the formal process of investigation was used. Thus she was enrolled in the roll of saints just a little less than two years after her death. August 12^th was chosen as her feast day, the day after her death because the Feast of Sts. Tiburtius and Susanna already occupied the eleventh of August, the day on which she actually died. The Roman calendar was revised in 1969, and her feast was moved to August 11, following the custom of celebrating on the day of their death.

The documents of the formal process of investigation reveal much that might not have been revealed about her life at San Damiano. The life of the Poor Ladies was a hidden life, a life of prayer and contemplation. However, the process demanded that her sisters be interviewed to determine if the honor of being named a saint should be hers. Because of these interviews, we know that on the day before she died, St. Clare received a Papal Bull approving her form of life or rule. The documentation tells this story:

“At the end of her life, after calling all her sisters, she entrusted the Privilege of Poverty to them. Her great desire was to have the Rule of the Order confirmed with a papal bull, to be able one day to place her lips upon the papal seal, and, then, on the following day to die. It occurred just as she desired. She learned a brother had come with letters bearing the papal bull. She reverently took it even though she was very close to death and pressed that seal to her mouth in order to kiss it.”

Ingrid Peterson wrote: “As Clare had taken charge of her life, so she orchestrated her death. Her one desire was to receive papal approval of her Rule, and, that accomplished, her life’s purpose was accomplished and she had no further purpose to live. The death of Clare had a finality like the death of Christ, happening when she resigned her will, as if announcing, “It is accomplished.”

For years the Church had tried to dissuade Clare from her desire to secure the Privilege of Poverty. In 1228, when Gregory IX offered Clare a dispensation from the vow of strict poverty, she replied: "I need to be absolved from my sins, but not from the obligation of following Christ."

In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul reminds us that we possess a treasure in earthen vessels. St. Clare realized that the treasure of following Christ was much more valuable than the treasures of this world. Thus she clung to Jesus, as a branch clings to the vine. Her life glorifies God as she did indeed bear much fruit in this life and enjoys the treasure of life with God now for all eternity.

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator