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Religious
Communities for Women THE ORDER OF POOR CLARES “Ego vos semper custodiam - I will always protect you,” (Our Lord’s words to St. Clare when Assisi was being attacked by the Saracens.) St. Clare was born in Assisi, Italy, in the last years of the twelfth century and was won over to Christ by St. Francis’ preaching. She co-founded with him in 1212 the Order of Poor Ladies, better known later as the Poor Clares.
Surprise
photo at the end of a ceremony Her Rule consists in “living the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ”. Proclaiming that there are other riches than those which we so name here below, and that we cannot bring ourselves to Christ’s love without ridding ourselves of everything that hides Him from us, St. Clare wanted her daughters before all else to be poor. Poverty is the distinguishing mark of her Order. When she enters the convent, the aspirant to the religious life must “give away her goods to the poor”, so as to live from then on only by her work and on alms, trusting wholly on the Father. St. Clare instituted for her daughters an assiduous liturgical life, with the recitation of the Divine Office by night and by day, being before God the perpetual voice of those “who cannot, who do not know how and who do not want to pray.” St. Clare twice obtained by her prayers the miraculous deliverance of her convent as well as of Assisi from marauding bands of Saracens. By the cloister she separated her daughters from the world, only to keep their thoughts dwelling on mankind’s spiritual needs. Ever occupied with their brothers’ salvation, the poor Clares only live to win them all for Jesus Christ. In her own time, which was just as troubled by war and love for riches as our own, St. Clare of Assisi was the personification of peace and joy, which are the fruits of the detachment from all that passes away. Before her death on August 11, 1253, there were already seventy-five convents of her Order in nine European countries.
St
Clare’s Monastery, winter 1998-1999, Some of her daughters are still carrying on even today her silent and hidden mission near the Capuchin Friary at Morgon, France. Mère Supérieure
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