11 August: St Clare of Assisi

Today is the feast day of St Clare of Assisi. 10 facts about her:

1. Her name at birth was Chiara Offreduccio. Her parents were Favorino Sciffi, Count of Sasso-Rosso and his wife Ortolana. The family were wealthy and lived in a palace in Assisi.
2. Her family would almost certainly have been looking to marry her off, but when she was a teenager she attended a service where St Francis was preaching. She declared to him that she wanted to live a religious life and asked for his help. She left her home that evening to meet him at the chapel of the Porziuncula. There, she changed into a habit and had her Hair cut off.
3. Francis placed Clare in the convent of the Benedictine nuns of San Paulo, near Bastia. Her father came to try and force her to go home but she resisted, clinging to the altar. St Francis moved her then to another Benedictine monastery away from her family.
4. Well, most of them, anyway. Her sister Catarina also became a nun and joined her there. She took the name Agnes and would later become a saint herself.
5. After a while a small house was built for the sisters next to the church. They were joined by a few other women who became known as the "Poor Ladies of San Damiano". They lived a simple life of poverty, austerity and seclusion from the world, and would later evolve into the Poor Clares.
6. Clare wrote their Rule of Life, making her the first woman to write a set of monastic guidelines.
7. She died on 11 August 1253 at the age of 59, following a long period of poor health. Her last words were, "Blessed be You, O God, for having created me."
8. At her funeral, Pope Innocent IV insisted the friars perform the Office for the Virgin Saints as opposed to the Office for the Dead. This was a sign that she would be fast-tracked to sainthood. She was canonised on 26 September 1255 by Pope Alexander IV.
9. In art, she is usually pictured as she was when she warded off the invading army of Frederick II, holding a sacred container, a lamp and wearing a nun's habit.
10. She is patron of eye disease, goldsmiths, laundry, bicycle messengers, good weather, needleworkers, Remote viewing, Extrasensory perception and the Philippines. In later life, she was often too ill to go to Mass but according to legend, the service would be miraculously projected onto the wall of her room so she could see and hear it from her bed. It was because of this that Pope Pius XII designated Clare as the patron saint of television in 1958.

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