Brother Francis' Little Plant

Clare Scifi was wellborn. Her father was the Count of Sasso-Rosso, the wealthy scion of an ancient Roman family, who owned a sizable palace at Assisi and a castle on Mt. Subasio. Clare was beautiful, with long golden hair, and it was not surprising that when she was 153 most eligible young man asked for her hand in marriage. But Clare said no; she wished to consecrate herself to God. Her parents hoped she would grow out of it.

The Back Door, at Night. In 1212, when Clare was about 18, a strange and pious youth named Francis, the son of Assisi's rich cloth merchant, came to preach a Lenten course of sermons in the church of San Giorgio. In young Francis, who had dedicated himself to God and poverty, Clare knew at once that she had found the inspiration of her life. She appealed to him to help her leave the worldly world, as he had done. Together the two future saints concocted a holy plot. On Palm Sunday she appeared in church with her mother and sisters; the people of Assisi had never seen the fair-haired Clare so beautiful or so finely dressed. They never saw her again. Late the next night she stole from her father's palace by a back door and made her way to Francis and his devout followers, who met her with torches.

Then, before the image of the Virgin in a little chapel, Clare exchanged her bright dress for a rough wool robe, her jeweled belt for a knotted rope, her high headdress for a black veil. Francis himself cropped off her golden hair.

Three years later Sister Clare was abbess of an order of nuns in the old 8th century Church of San Damiano, which Francis had rebuilt, largely with his own hands. For the 38 years that remained to her, Clare never left those walls, while the order she founded spread all over Italy and France. As with the Franciscans, poverty is the cornerstone of the "Poor Clares"; they may not even hold property in common, but depend on begging.

Storm Against the Saracens. St. Francis died in 1226, in his early 40s, but Clare lived on to be almost 60, subsisting most of the time on an ounce and a half of bread a day, serving her sisters at table and nursing them in sickness, praying late into the night and rising early to ring the bell for Mass. Twice she is said to have saved Assisi from invading armies. In 1234, when the Saracen soldiers of Frederick II scaled the walls of San Damiano by night, Clare confronted them in an open window holding the Sacrament. The soldiers fled. Later a larger force returned and Clare led her sisters in prayer. Suddenly a huge storm arose that scattered the tents of the enemy, who once again fled in panic.

Last week Assisi celebrated the 700th anniversary of St. Clare's death. Pilgrims and dignitaries from all over the world poured into the little Umbrian town for two days of special services and speeches. In the triumphant procession that climaxed the celebration, behind long lines of tonsured friars and bundled nuns, five relics of the saint were borne; a ball of yarn she had spun, a chip of her bones, a skein of hair cut off by St. Francis, her brown mantle, and the rough tunic she wore.

But none of this was seen by the Poor Clares. Like their 12,000-odd sisters throughout the world, the 47 Poor Clares of Assisi spent these days in their cloister with no sight of the world but the sky above them, praying, working, singing and fasting, to be worthy of being what their founder liked to call herself: Brother Francis' Little Plant.

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