Feast Day: August 11
Patron Saint of: Television, eye disease, embroiderers, and contemplative life
Religious Order: Foundress of the Poor Clares (Order of Poor Ladies)

Early Life and Spiritual Awakening

Clare Offreduccio was born in Assisi, Italy, in 1193 or 1194 to a noble and wealthy family. Inspired by the radical gospel lifestyle of Saint Francis of Assisi, she rejected wealth and privilege, choosing instead a life of poverty, prayer, and penance.

At the age of 18, Clare secretly left her family home and, in a powerful gesture of renunciation, received the habit from Francis at the Portiuncula Chapel on Palm Sunday, 1212. This moment marked the beginning of her radical devotion to Christ and the poor.

Foundress of the Poor Clares

Clare took refuge in the Benedictine monastery of San Paolo, and later moved to San Damiano, where she established the Order of Poor Ladies, later known as the Poor Clares. Her younger sister Saint Agnes of Assisi and other women soon joined her, forming a community dedicated to the Franciscan ideals of poverty, humility, and enclosure.

She wrote the first monastic Rule known to have been written by a woman, approved by Pope Innocent IV just two days before her death. Her rule insisted on complete poverty, even refusing the right to own property as a community—an unprecedented stance at the time.

Defender of Faith and Witness of Miracles

Clare demonstrated remarkable courage and leadership, especially during the Saracen attack on Assisi in 1240. It is said she held up the Blessed Sacrament at the convent gates, and the attackers miraculously fled. Her faith and trust in the Eucharist became legendary.

She lived a life of extreme austerity and deep mystical union with Christ, often spending hours in Eucharistic adoration and contemplation.

Death and Canonization

Saint Clare died on August 11, 1253, at the age of 59. She was canonized only two years later, in 1255, by Pope Alexander IV. Her body remains incorrupt and is venerated in the Basilica of Saint Clare in Assisi, a major site of pilgrimage and Franciscan devotion.

Spiritual Legacy

Clare’s legacy lives on in the thousands of Poor Clare monasteries around the world. In 1958, Pope Pius XII declared her the patron saint of television, due to the story that she miraculously saw and heard Mass on the wall of her cell when too ill to attend.

Her life is a radiant example of contemplative courage, feminine strength in faith, and radical Gospel living.

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