| CONFERENCE OF THE
MINISTERS GENERAL
OF THE FRANCISCAN FIRST ORDER AND TOR
"Listen, little poor ones called by the Lord …"
Letter inaugurating the 750th anniversary of the death of Saint Clare
____________________
To all the Poor Ladies, daughters and sisters of our Mother Saint Clare,
the first and principal abbess of your Order (i); to all Friars Minor from every branch
and observance throughout the world; to all our brothers and sisters in the Third Order
Regular and the Secular Franciscan Order, from their brothers, the Ministers General of
the Franciscan Order: may you receive every good and perfect gift from the Father of
mercies together with joy in the Holy Spirit and peace from our Lord Jesus Christ, poor,
crucified and gloriously risen!
Listen, little poor ones called by the Lord, who have come together from many parts and
provinces, (ii) this coming year of salvation, the year 2003, is a year of significance
and grace for us all. In it we are invited to share the dance of joy with which, seven
hundred and fifty years ago, the heavenly hosts (iii) went to meet the Lady Clare at her
death. At the same time, we recall that day when the Lord Pope Innocent IV approved the
Form of Life written by the Lady Clare for the Order of Poor Sisters which the blessed
Francis instituted. In this Form of Life she committed herself and you, Poor Ladies and
our dear sisters, to observe the holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ by living in
obedience, without anything of your own and in chastity (iv). We know how gloriously she
fulfilled that promise throughout her life, and we know how deeply she was moved by this
approval granted - after so many years of struggle - by the representative of Jesus Christ
himself. Two days later, she, the mirror of the morning star (v), vanished from our sight.
Wonderfully prepared by the Virgin of virgins, she was taken into the wine-cellar (vi) of
the King of Glory.
Even though 750 years have passed, these two events still reverberate among us today.
Filled with gratitude to God, let us proclaim them joyfully to the Church. Let us find new
ways of speaking to the people of our troubled times about the gentle goodness of the Lady
Clare. Let us, brothers and sisters, work together to honour and fulfil her charism in the
Church as a gift to the whole People of God. Finally, let us encourage each other on this
Pilgrimage of Poverty, so that we too may be mirrors of Emmanuel, God-with-us, as she was
to the people of her own time.
Some Reflections …
The death of a saint often reveals the primary characteristics of her or his
spirituality and life, and so it was with the lady Clare. Woven through the narratives of
her death we can see the great themes of her life and thought: commitment to her sisters
and brothers and total dedication to following in the footprints of the poor Christ.
At her bedside were her sisters in God and her brothers, friendships that went right back
to those early spring days when the project was new and she and Francis were both young
and vigorous. Raynaldo, that kind man, was there, and Juniper - 'the excellent jester of
the Lord', filling her with joy at the sparks from the furnace of his fervent heart.
Angelo was there, comforting the others as he did so often, and Leo was there, grieving
with them at the prospect of losing her. What evidence of long and faithful friendships,
spanning more than forty years! How they must have supported each other through so many
difficult times! The presence of the brothers at her death-bed reminds us of all that
Clare shared with Francis. It also reminds us that we have inherited that sharing, that
mutual charism and complementary vocation. Here, at the end of her life, we see the Lady
Clare still being faithful to the bond between the Poor ladies and the Friars Minor. What
a joy it must have been for her to be accompanied by them right to the gate of heaven
itself.
The dying Clare took two precious documents into her hands. One was the Privilege of
Poverty granted her by Gregory IX. Sr Filippa tells us that at the end of her life, after
calling together all her sisters, she handed the Privilege of Poverty to them (vii),
entrusting them, says the Legend, with the poverty of the Lord (viii). The second document
which she took into her hands was the fulfilment of her great desire to have the Form of
Life of the Order confirmed by a papal bull (ix). On her death-bed, she was able to hold
that papal bull in her hands and to kiss it.
Such events give us much food for thought about the interaction of charism and institution
in our lives, for these two documents sought to clothe, in the legal language of the
Church, the intense devotion of Francis and Clare to that God
who poor was placed in a manger, was poor as he lived in this world
and naked as he remained on the gibbet. (x)
Here we catch a glimpse of that mysticism of vulnerability which Saint Clare learnt from
the Son of God himself, who emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave … and
was humbler yet, even to accepting death death on a cross. (xi)
In our materialistic world, this poverty of heart shines like a beacon (xii) of
contradiction. In an argumentative and self-protecting age such vulnerability really is
the folly of the Cross. This poverty and this vulnerability were Christ's own, and out of
love for him she made them her own. Clothed in such poverty, she shines before us with a
rare and luminous beauty.
In the great icon of the Lady Clare, painted in 1283 at the request of her sisters, we see
portrayed Clare the great lover of God. In this representation she stands before us
clothed in poor garments for the love of the holy and beloved Child and of his most holy
Mother (xiii). Her face is that of one who has seen the King of Glory (xiv). As Francis
was the alter Christus, another Christ, so Clare was the fulfilment of Francis' promise
that for those who do such things and persevere in them, 'the Spirit of the Lord will rest
upon them and make its dwelling place among them, and they are children of the heavenly
Father whose works they do, and they are spouses, brothers, sisters and mothers of our
Lord Jesus Christ' (xv).
In the icon the figure of Clare is surrounded by eight scenes from her life. Four of these
recount her religious vocation and four recount her Franciscan form of life. One scene
tells us about her much-loved sister Agnes and one relates the miracle of the half-loaf
(the other half had already been given to the brothers) (xvi) which Sister Cecilia (xvii)
cut and cut until all had eaten and been satisfied. This was truly a Eucharistic meal in
which the poor of Yahweh were fed and nourished from the table of the Lord. In the last
two scenes of the icon, the death and funeral of our Mother are recounted. We see the
coming of our Lady with her companions to cover her daughter with a beautiful cloth, as
befitted the Bride of the Lamb hastening to the wedding feast. Finally we see her funeral
Mass, celebrated by Pope Innocent IV who wanted, as you know, to proceed at once to honour
her as a saint. Fortunately for us, Cardinal Rainaldo restrained him, and so we have the
precious text of the Canonisation Process with its wealth of stories and insights from
those who had lived with her. In this icon we see the poverella, the feminine face of
Franciscanism, filled with respect, intelligence and tenderness (xviii). In this icon, we
see a medieval portrayal of the gifts of God which are now in our hands, however
inadequate we may feel them to be, for us to administer, to develop and to hand on to the
next generation of Poor Sisters.
An Appeal to the Poor Ladies, our Sisters
How shall we worthily celebrate these events which are insignificant on the world's stage,
almost unknown to the media, but well-known, relevant and important in the Kingdom of God?
By way of offering some shape to the coming months, we suggest that this 750th Centenary
should run from Palm Sunday 2003 when the Lady Clare fled from her parental home and
promised obedience to Francis at St Mary of the Angels, and that it close with a great
celebration on the Feast of the glorious Lady Clare on 11 August 2004. As your brothers we
offer to assist you in any way we can. One of the great gifts we friars have received in
recent years has been our growing knowledge and appreciation of the Lady Clare, and it is
our sincere wish that this gift be cherished and continually enriched among us.
Two Suggestions…
Finally, may we ourselves make two suggestions? The Fioretti tells us that the Lady Saint
Clare had a great desire to eat a meal with the Blessed Francis, and that he, at first
reluctant, gave in to her at the urgent request of the brothers. Could we, brothers and
sisters of today, each in our own area, explore the possibility of re-enacting that
amazing meal? Just as those early brothers urged Francis, so we would urge you to consider
this idea. Let us devise a celebratory meal which is a banquet for body and soul, truly a
feast of God. Let us be drawn together by the Spirit of God and may that same Spirit set
the blaze of glory about our dwellings too, so that all the people are made to wonder at
the fire of God in their midst.
Our second suggestion is that each of us, in our separate areas of the world, seek ways of
drawing the whole Franciscan family into our honouring of Clare. The fragrant words of her
rule and letters bring wisdom for us all but, even though we all need her dimension of our
charism, yet she is not as widely known and loved as she should be. Let us take the
opportunity of this centenary year to make sure that no Franciscan can ever again say: I
do not know much about St Clare.
Conclusion and Blessing
What more is there for us to say? We are deeply conscious of the promise of our father
Francis that he would always have for you the same loving care and special solicitude as
he had for his brothers. We feel this as a sacred charge laid upon us by him. Out of this
belief, and trusting in the immense goodness of God, we offer you our blessing in the very
words of Saint Clare herself:
We bless you as much as we can and more than we can. Always be lovers of your own souls
and of the souls of your sisters and brothers. May you always observe what you have
promised to the Lord. And may the Lord be with you always and may you be with him, always
and in every place. Amen.
Rome, October 4, 2002.
Br. Giacomo Bini
Minister General OFM
Br. Joachim Giermek
Minister General OFMConv.
Br. John Corriveau
Minister General OFMCap.
Br. Ilija Zivkovic
Minister General TOR
i. CanProc VI,2
ii. Francis' Canticle of Exhortation
iii. Notification of the Death of Clare
iv. Rule Clare 1.1,2
v. Notification of Death
vi. 4Ag 31
vii. ProcCan III,32
viii. Legend 45
ix. ProcCan III,32
x. TestCl 45
xi. Philippians 2,6-8
xii. Ant for 1 Jan
xiii. RegCl 2.24
xiv. ProcCan
xv. 1st Letter to the Faithful 6,7
xvi. Legend 15
xvii. ProcCan 6,16
xviii. Les Visages de Fran�oise d'Assise by Michel Feuillet, Descl�e de Brouwer, Paris
1997, p.125
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