How I Met Clare

A Franciscan sister I know often says, "Clare was a Franciscan longer than Francis was". It might sound odd at first, but Clare did outlive Francis, meaning that she was in fact a Franciscan longer. Even with this, Clare has somehow taken a back seat in Franciscan history. But looking back at my own Franciscan journey, along with reflecting on our own times today, Clare might be someone we want to put at the forefront.

For a long time, I really didn't know much about Clare, other than the fact that she started what we know of today as the Poor Clares. Even going to Franciscan schools for right years, both high school and college, the majority of who we ended up talking about and studying was Francis. Of course, Francis is important, he did begin the whole movement, and Clare was the one that followed him. But while at the time it may not have made much of a difference to me, looking back now it seems odd that we never really discussed Clare in detail.

I will be the first person to admit that faith and God haven't always been a priority in my life. There were a good five or six years spread between high school and college where I would be what is called a non-practicing Catholic, meaning I was baptized but I wasn't going to church, or "practicing" the faith. While there were moments here and there that brought me a little closer to God, such as mission trips and service opportunities, I still found myself searching for the wrong things. I still believed in God, but I was searching for joy and peace by trying to impress other people and being who I really wasn't. I didn't see myself as good and didn't see the good that I was made with. Learning more and more about the Franciscan charism over the years was helpful. It was a way of living that made sense to me but still didn't put faith and God at the forefront.

That all changed when I went to Assisi on pilgrimage as a junior in college. I remember hearing different stories and visiting some of the places associated with Francis and thinking, "This is cool, but it's not really doing a whole lot for me". Then came the Clare Walk. Tradition tells us that Clare left her home and her lavish life in the middle of the night on Palm Sunday to join Francis and the brothers in their way of life. On the Clare Walk, at night you retrace the steps that Clare took that night from where tradition tells us was her family home, to outside the gate of Assisi. As we began the walk, it felt just like all the other parts of the pilgrimage, until we arrived at the gate. It was at that point that something in me started stirring, a feeling of change and fire burning in me. When I walked through the gate and exited Assisi, everything changed. I almost felt like a completely different person. All of the bad that I had thought about myself, and all of the bad that I kept beating myself up over, somehow was overwhelmed with a sense of being loved. I felt transformed. The only way I can really describe it is that I was embraced, and as I stood looking out over the valley, God and faith became real to me. The Franciscan life became real to me because I recognized the faith that Clare put in the life and into God.

When I returned home, I'm sure everyone around me probably thought I was going crazy. Everything changed. The way I saw the world, how I saw people, the way I wanted to live, everything. I wanted to learn as much as I could about Franciscan life and the charism, and I wanted everyone to experience it. It was the first time I had ever considered a vocation to religious life. It was the friars at St Bonaventure University who really encouraged me to explore this and eventually apply to the order.

When I entered formation, it was a lot of stuff about Francis still, granted he was the founder of the order and the way of life. But it really wasn't anything super groundbreaking to me, probably because after eight years of being at Franciscan schools there really wasn't much I hadn't heard. It was my second year of formation when we took a class on Clare and her writings. I don't think any of us in formation knew that there even were writings of Clare. The writings of Clare are letters to Agnes of Prague, a noble woman who strove to give up her nobility and follow Clare. Agnes opened a monastery for those who wanted the same in Prague. Clare, hearing about Agnes, her story, and the similarities to her own life, decided to write to her. One would think that these letters would be about being a good sister or how to deal with problems at the monastery. But at the core of the letters is love, specifically how to see yourself as loved not just by God but by others. Clare writes to Agnes to lift her up in her own beauty, recognizing that through that beauty is how God works. These letters quickly became my favorite Franciscan writings, and I often suggest them to people as a good starting point to Clare.

It wasn't until about three years later when I finally returned to Assisi that I had another special encounter with Clare. Calre lived most of her life at San Damiano, the same place where Francis first heard the call from God through the cross. One of the things Clare was known for in her life was healing people, whether it was physically or spiritually, and eventually San Damiano became known as a place of healing. One of my brothers once told me, "if you need healing, that is the place to ask for it". I have needed healing from many things in life. I remember entering in San Damiano twice, once struggling to stay away from alcohol, and the other to be released from guilt that had been weighing me down for almost a year. I sat in that little chapel both times, praying through the intercession of Clare, to experience some kind of healing. The only way I can describe it, is that the struggle and the guilt just went away. It disappeared. It was an incredible experience that I'm thankful for experiencing twice now. Even some other people I've talked to experienced the same thing. It just disappeared. There's something special about that place, a place where so many have been healed by Clare or through her intercession.

Today, when I think about Clare and the impact that she had on me, I hope that her life can inspire us today to make changes, but I also think about my own sister. Clare was someone who really went against the current when it came to society and the church. During that time, a young woman never would've left home by herself, or at night. They never would've left their family and riches behind. And while other women's religious were adopting the Rule of st Benedict, Clare fought for her own rule. Clare was a trailblazer in her own time, and shows the importance of women religious in our church today. My sister, who took Clare as her confirmation name, is a non-practicing Catholic. She's baptized but does not "practice" her faith. When I look at our society and our church, I honestly don't blame her. We are living in a society where women's rights have taken a backseat because of the faith of men. We serve in a church where women are still not allowed to be ordained, and in some cases women religious still don't have the respect they deserve. When I think about the future of our church and my future as a friar, I think about my sister a lot. She is the one who pushes me to be a better minister and work for a better church every day. It is through the example of Clare that we can make the church a more profoundly inclusive environment for women who either just want to practice their faith or who want to serve in a deeper way. It's through Clare's example that I believe we can make a better church for our sisters, for my sister.

Clare is very special to me, in a way I owe her my Franciscan vocation. I hope that we can continue to be inspired by her and continue to walk through the many gates of life and come out the other side transformed, knowing that we will always be embraced when we do so.