St.Clara.

A former chaplain wrote: “I don’t understand one thing, and I keep returning to it in my mind. How is it possible that so many were able to believe in me.”

He mentions the bishop who ordained him, the seminary rector who recommended him and pushed him to further studies, and the parish priest who accepted him, listened to him, and was his role model. And he finished: “I don’t understand. Where would I be without those people?!” I replied: “That’s easy. God guides us in his ways through others. This is how you now help others”.

This occurred to me in connection with today’s holiday. What would she be without St. Francis? God guided her through him. On Palm Sunday, March 18, 1212, eighteen-year-old Klara Offereduccio, the daughter of an important noble family in the central Italian city of Assisi, secretly runs away from home under the cover of darkness. Why? Because she saw the happiness St. Francis experienced in consistently following Christ. She wanted it too. She expressed how much influence he had on her in the time of pain on the bed of suffering before her death. Even though she could no longer take any food during the last seventeen days, the Lord endowed her with such strength that she encouraged all who came to her to serve Christ. When Brother Rainaldo called on her to be patient in the long martyrdom, she replied: “Dearest brother, since I came to know the grace of my Lord through the servant of God Francis, no punishment is too heavy for me,

And wasn’t it the other way around? Was she, not St. Klára reinforcement for St. Francis? She was.

Klara harbored feelings of childlike devotion and love towards Francis. She was interested in the serious problems of the “lesser brothers” (that’s what Francis’ monks were called) and tried to contribute to their successful solution in her way. Once, Francis asked her to help him in making an essential decision about whether he should join his brothers in hermit life or whether they should devote themselves to the apostolate. Clare encouraged him to the apostolate and then, together with the sisters, supported the lesser brothers with prayer and sacrifices in their efforts for the Christian renewal of life at that time. Is it presumptuous to say that St. Clare gave the seal to the Franciscan order? Perhaps not, But only God knows how, together with her sisters, she helped them with prayer and sacrifices in their efforts to restore the Christian life of that time and, ultimately, of their present life.