St. Clare of Assisi

“We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become” 

St. Clare was a one of the first followers of Saint Francis and cofounder of the Poor Clares. She is known for her deep love of prayer, her radical simplicity, and her devotion to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Clare, or in Italian, ‘Chiara’ means "light” or “bright.” It reflects her role as a light for the Franciscan Order and the Church. Her mother, during a pre-birth vision, was told she would bear a light that would "illumine the world"

The daughter of a noble family living in Assisi, Italy, Clare was known for her deep spirituality and love for the poor. She was attracted to the radical way of life preached by St. Francis. On the evening of Palm Sunday 1212 ,to the dismay of her family, Clare secretly met Francis and his small band of brothers to commit her life to God and to begin a community of women devoted to living the gospel called The Poor Clares, originally known as the Order of Poor Ladies. Everything she and her sisters made or grew they gave to others, and others in turn gave to the sisters. In this way they shared the lives and poverty of those around them. For Clare and Francis, Jesus doubled down being human, wounds and all, and having "no place to lay his head", Christ lived in poverty too. They felt that the fewer things they had the more room they had for God in their hearts. Her friendship with St. Francis, her love for Jesus, the poor, and most vulnerable among her, shaped an entire movement that continues to this day.

I paint St. Clare holding a candle, a bright light in the darkness, as she too was known to be.

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