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Saint Clare: Difference between revisions
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Because of her austerities, Clare was almost always sick and confined to her bed. Her illness continued for the last twenty-seven years of her life. | Because of her austerities, Clare was almost always sick and confined to her bed. Her illness continued for the last twenty-seven years of her life. | ||
Saint Clare of | [[File:Arredondo-santa clara.jpg|thumb|upright|Saint Clare Driving Away the Infidels with the Eucharist, Isidoro Arredondo (1691)]] | ||
== Devotion to the Eucharist == | |||
Saint Clare had a special devotion to the Holy Eucharist. She was inflamed with love for [[Jesus Christ]] and believed that there was no better practice to testify her gratitude than to adore several times a day the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament. | |||
As related in her biographies, her soul was filled with the sweetest delights and very special favors. So devoted was Saint Clare to the Sacred Heart in the Most Blessed Sacrament that her emblem became the monstrance, and in art she is frequently represented with a monstrance or a ciborium. | |||
Clare’s special devotion to the Holy Eucharist saved her convent at San Damiano from a group of Saracens in the army of Frederick II who were on their way to plunder nearby Assisi c. 1240. As the soldiers scaled the convent walls, Clare rose from her sick bed and, according to one account, had the Blessed Sacrament set up in view of the enemy—prostrating herself before it and calmly praying aloud (other versions of the story state that Clare herself held up the Sacrament while facing the infidels). At the sight of this, the advancing soldiers were suddenly seized with terror and took flight. | |||
Not long after, a larger group led by one of Frederick’s generals returned to attack the town. Clare and the nuns prayed fervently through the day and night that Assisi might be spared. At dawn, a furious storm broke over the army’s camp, scattering their tents and forcing them to flee in panic. | |||
== Legacy == | == Legacy == | ||
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<blockquote>Clare was not only constant in work, she was frequent in prayer. It is told that she once stayed three days in a trance, and there is no doubt that she tasted the supreme bliss of the Heavenly Vision that is the crown and glory of the religious life. There are many legends about these later years that tell of her as the ecstatic—as the contemplative.<ref>''Saint Clare and Her Order: A Story of Seven Centuries''.</ref></blockquote> | <blockquote>Clare was not only constant in work, she was frequent in prayer. It is told that she once stayed three days in a trance, and there is no doubt that she tasted the supreme bliss of the Heavenly Vision that is the crown and glory of the religious life. There are many legends about these later years that tell of her as the ecstatic—as the contemplative.<ref>''Saint Clare and Her Order: A Story of Seven Centuries''.</ref></blockquote> | ||
Clare died at the age of sixty. We can call to her [[causal body]] to invoke the momentum of her power of prayer in our life and to establish a personal relationship with | Clare died at the age of sixty. We can call to her [[causal body]] to invoke the momentum of her power of prayer in our life and to establish a personal relationship with Jesus. | ||
== See also == | == See also == | ||