Saint Clare (1253)

She was the beautiful nun who took the veil from Saint Francis of Assisi when she was eighteen years old, and under his direction established the Religious Order of nuns known as the Poor Clares. She was born in 1193, and died when she was exactly sixty years old. Two years after she died she was canonized a saint. So radiant and childlike was her evangelical wisdom that Popes, cardinals and bishops all consulted her about their problems. Her sister, Saint Agnes of Assisi, five years younger that she — and whose feast is November 16 — was with her when she died, and died three months after her. Saint Clare’s devotion to the Blessed Sacrament was so extraordinary that one day, when the Saracens were besieging Assisi and trying to enter the Convent of Saint Damian where she and her nuns lived, she lifted up a monstrance in which the Blessed Sacrament had been placed and called upon Jesus to put the Saracens to flight. They trembled before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, and all of them fled in fright and never returned.

Detail depicting Saint Clare from a fresco (1312–20) by Simone Martini in the Lower basilica of San Francesco, Assisi (source)

Detail depicting Saint Clare from a fresco (1312–20) by Simone Martini in the Lower basilica of San Francesco, Assisi (source)