Clara claris praeclara
�
The Bull of Pope Alexander IV, Bishop
servant of the servants of God
�On the Canonization of Saint
Clare
Co-Foundress of the Poor Clares
Agnani: Sept. 26. 1255 A.D.
Alexander, Bishop, Servant of the servants of God,�
To Our venerable brothers, the Archbishops and Bishops established
throughout the Kingdom of France,�health and apostolic benediction:
Clare outstandingly
clear with clear merits, in Heaven with the clarity of great glory,
and on Earth with the splendour of sublime miracles, is clearly clear.
Here this Clare's strict and high Religion twinkles, above the
greatness of this one's eternal reward radiates, this one's virtue by
magnificent signs, begins to shine upon mortals. To this Clare there
was entitled here the Privilege of most high poverty; to this one
there is repaid in the highest an inestimable abundance of treasures;
to this one by Catholics a full devotion and a heap of honour is
exhibited. This Clare did her shining� works here mark out, this Clare
the plenitude of Divine Light on high does clarify, this one to the
Christian peoples do the stupendous works of her prodigies declare.
The Brilliance of St. Clare
�2. O Clare, endowed in
a manifold manner with titles of clarity! Before thy conversion thou
were indeed clear, in thy conversion clearer, in thy comportment in
the cloister outstandingly clear, and after having run down the space
of thy present life thou has begun to shine as most clear! By this
Clare a clear mirror of example goes forth to this generation; by this
one the lily of virginity is offered among the heavenly amenities; by
this one throughout the lands� are the manifest remedies of
interventions sensed. O clarity of blessed Clare to be admired, which
as much as it is sought more studiously through individual examples,
so much more splendid is it found among individual examples! This one
gleamed, I say, in the world, in Religion she outshone; in her house
she enlightened as a ray, in the cloister she twinkled as lightning.
She gleamed in life, after death she irradiates; she was clear on
Earth, in the sky she shines back! O how great the vehemence of the
light of this one and how vehement the illumination of this clarity of
hers! This light, indeed, remained enclosed in secret cloisters, and
outside it emitted sparkling� rays; it was gathered together in a
strict convent, and it was sprinkled upon the entire age; it was
guarded within, and it flowed forth outside. For indeed, Clare lay
hidden, but her life lay open; Clare was silent, but her fame shouted
out; she was concealed in her cell and she was known among cities. Nor
is it wonderful; because a light so enkindled, so lightsome,
could not be hidden away so as to not shine and give a clear
light in the house of the Lord; nor could a vessel of so many
aromatics be put back and not fragrance and resprinkle the Lord's
mansion with a sweet odour. Nay, since in the narrow recluse of
solitude this one harshly ground down the alabaster of her body, the
whole court� of the Church has been filled full in every manner
with the odours of her sanctity.
How St. Clare forsook the world
�3. In a healthy
manner, when she, while she was still a girl in the world, studied to
leap over this fragile and unclean world from a tender age by means of
a clean, narrow path, and guarding the precious treasure of her
virginity by a sense of shame, always unspotted, vigilantly stretched
unto works of clarity and piety, so much that there came forth from
her a pleasing and praiseworthy report� to her neighbours and others,
blessed Francis, having heard the public commendation of her fame,
undertook with complete haste to exhort her, and to induce her to the
perfect service of Christ. Who, thereupon adhering to his sacred
warnings, and desiring to abdicate entirely the world with all earthly
things, and to serve as a family member� the Lord alone in voluntary
poverty, she fulfilled this her fervent desire, as soon as she could:
because at last she distributed and converted all her goods, as she
counted out of reverence to Christ whatever else she had as one thing
with herself, into alms and subsidies for the poor. And
when fleeing the clatter of the world, she went down to a certain
country� church, and by blessed Francis himself, there received the
sacred tonsure, she processed to another, with her relatives growing
soft� to lead her back (home) from that place, she, immediately
embracing the altar, and grasping her clothes, having uncovered the
sheering� of the hair of her head, strongly and steadily resisted the
same relatives in this; Then when she had been brought by the same
blessed Francis to the church of San Damiano, outside the city of
Assisi, where she was born, there the Lord for the love and assiduous
cult of His Name gathered to her very many associates.
St. Clare founds
the Order of St. Damiano
�4. From this, indeed,
distinguished and sacred Order of San Damiano, spread far throughout
the whole globe, one takes up a salutary exordium. She, by the
exhorting of blessed Francis himself, gave start, that must be
followed, to this new and holy observance; she of the great Religion
was the primary and stable foundation; she of this high work stood
forth as its primitive stone. She of a noble family, but of a more
noble comportment, conserved in an outstanding manner� the virginity,
which she had also previously guarded, under this rule of sanctimony.
After a while her mother, Hortulana by name, intent on pious works, by
following the footsteps of her own newborn, devoutly undertook this
Religion; in which at last this optimum little garden, which brought
forth such a plant in the Lord's garden, happily concluded her days.
The Brilliance of St. Clare as Foundress
�5. But after a few
years, blessed Clare herself, having been overcome by the exceeding
importunity of the same St. Francis, received the government of the
monastery and the Sisters. She, indeed, was the tall and
eminent tree, which, having spread out with long branches,
brought into the field of the Church the sweet fruit of
religion, and to whose delightful shade, under its amenity
there would run together from all sides many nurslings of the faith,
(who) were to offer fruit of this kind, and do they run! She was the
clean vein of the Valley of Spoleto, which gave a new fount of
living water as drink for the refection and convenience of
souls; which, diverted now through diverse rivulets in the territory
of the Church, infuses the young trees of religion. She was the tall
candelabra of sanctity vehemently shining red in the
tabernacle of the Lord, to whose vast� splendour very many women
hastened and do hasten, enkindling their own lamps from that
light. She as a result planted and cultivated in the field of the
Faith the vine of poverty, from which the fatty and rich fruits of
salvation are gathered; she established in the praesidium of the
Church a garden of humility, in which, having twined together those
poor in a manifold of things, there is found a great abundance of
virtues; She in the occupation of Religion constructed� a citadel of
strict abstinence, in which there is ministered a broad refection of
spiritual nourishment.
The Brilliance of St. Clare's Virtues
�6. She was the
princess of the poor, the duchess of the humble, the teacher of the
continent, and the Abbess of the penitent. She governed her monastery,
and the family entrusted to her in it, solicitly and prudently in the
fear and service of the Lord and in the full observance of the Order:
vigil in care, in ministry studious, in exhortation attentive;
diligent in admonition, in correction moderate, temperate in precepts;
in compassion outstanding, discrete in silence, in speech mature, and
well considered in all the things opportune to a perfect government,
willing more to serve as a family member than to rule as a lord, and
to honour than to be taken up in honour. Her life was an education�
and a doctrine to others. In this book of life all the
other (sisters) learned the rule for living; in this mirror of life
the rest of women learn to inspect the paths to life. For indeed she
caused herself in body to stand on Earth, but in spirit she was turned
unto the sky; a little vessel of humility, an armoire of chastity, an
ardour of charity, a sweetness of benignity, an oak-strength of
patience, a knot of peace and a communion of familiarity: meek in
work, supple in deed, and in all things lovable and accepted. And,
with the flesh depressed, to convalesce in spirit -- because anyone,
with their enemy debilitated, is made the stronger -- she kept� the
floor bare and brushwood for a bed, and for a pillow under her head
hard wood, and content with one tunic with a mantle of vile, despised
and rough cloth. These humble garments did she use for the covering of
her body, a sharp cilice woven from little cords of horse hair
sometimes employed next to the flesh. Strict too in food and in drink
withdrawn, she curbed herself with so great an abstinence in these,
that for a long time for three days a week, namely, Monday, Wednesday
and Friday, she tasted nearly nothing for her body, nevertheless on
the rest of the days restricting herself to such an extend with a
paucity of foods, that the other (sisters) use to wonder about her, in
what manner she could subsist under so strong a withdrawal. Over and
above these, dedicated assiduously to vigils and prayers, she expended
day and night-time chiefly in these. At last perplexed with daily
languors, when she could not rise by herself to corporal exertion, she
was raised by the suffrage of her Sisters and, having placed supports
at her back, she worked with her own hands, lest even in
her infirmities she be idle. Whence from linen cloth of this her own
study and labour, she caused very many corporals for the Sacrifice of
the Altar to be made, and to be employed throughout the plains and
mountains of Assisi in diverse churches.
Saint Clare's love of holy Poverty
�7. But a chief lover
and sedulous column of poverty; thus did she affix it in her soul,
thus did she bind herself to it in her desires, that always more
firmer in its love and more ardent in its embrace, from its withdrawn
and delightful bond she never stepped back for any necessity. Nor
could she in a straightforward manner be induced by any persuasions to
consent, that her monastery have its own possessions, even though Pope
Gregory, our predecessor of happy memory, from much indulgence
thinking piously of this very monastery, had freely willed to depute
to it, for the sustenance of her Sisters, possessions sufficient and
congruous.
The Miracles of Saint Clare
�8. Truly, because a
great and splendid window cannot be concealed, and not bring forth the
rays of its clarity, even in her life did the virtue of her sanctity
shine out in many and various miracles. For to a certain one of the
Sisters of her monastery, she restored the voice, which she had for a
long time almost entirely lost. To another, thoroughly destitute of
the use of the tongue, she restored unencumbered speech. To one of
(these) two she opened a deaf ear to hearing. Having made the sign of
the Cross upon them, she liberated one labouring under fever, one
swelling with hydropsy, one plagued with a fistula and others
oppressed by languors. A certain friar of the Order of Minors she
healed from the suffering of insanity. Moreover when at a certain time
the olive oil in the monastery totally failed, she herself, having
called the Friar who has been deputed to the same monastery for the
gathering of alms, accepted a jug and washed it, and placed it empty
next to the doors� of the monastery, so that the same Friar might bear
it off for acquiring olive oil; who when he wanted to take it, found
it filled with oil, by the benefice of a divine largess. Again, when
one day not but one half of a loaf of bread was had in the monastery
for the refection of the Sisters, she herself ordered the same
half-loaf to be divided in vain and dispensed to the Sisters; which
among the hands of the one breaking it, He who is the Living Bread
and who gives food to those who are hungry, multiplied it unto
so much, that there was made from it portions sufficient for fifty,
and it was distributed for the Sisters reclining at table.
Through these and other conspicuous signs, He marked out, while she
still lived, the pre-eminence of her merits. For even when she was in
her last moments, the brilliant white company of blessed Virgins,
ornamented with sparkling crowns, among whom one of them appeared more
eminently and more shiningly, was seen to enter the house, where the
same family of Christ use to recline at table, and even unto her small
bed� to proceed, and as if to exhibit about her the office of visiting
and the solace of comforting, with a certain zeal for human kindness.
But after her passing,
a certain man, who having fallen sick grew worse� and on account of a
contracted shin bone could not walk, was brought to her sepulchre:
there, with the shin bone itself making a sound as if of breaking, was
cured of each infirmity. Those bent at the kidneys, contracted in
members, quick to fall headlong into a rage and wild men, demented by
fury, received in that place a complete cure. A certain man's own
right hand � the very use of which he had thus lost out of a vehement
percussion brought upon him � because he could do entirely nothing by
means of it, just as if it were, in a word, useless, was reformed in a
full manner to its pristine acting, by the merits of the Saint
herself. Another, who by a long-termed� blindness has lost the light
of his eyes, when he had approached the same sepulchre under the
guiding of another, having recovered his sight in that place, returned
from that place without a guide. In these and how very many other
works and glorious miracles is this venerable Virgin resplendent, so
that there evidently appears fulfilled that which her very own mother,
while she was pregnant with her and was praying, is said to have
heard: that she was going to bear a certain light, which would light
up the globe in very many ways.
The Act of Canonization
�9. And so, let Mother
Church rejoice, that She has born such and educated a daughter, who as
a parent fecund with virtues, has produced many nurselings of
religious as Her own examples, and has informed them to the perfect
service of Christ by Her full magisterium. Let the devout crowd of the
faithful also be glad, that the King of Heaven and their Lord, has
introduced their sister and companion, whom He had chosen as His
own spouse, to His palace, outstandingly excelling and outstandingly
clear with glory. For the marching armies of the Saints rejoice also
together, that in their supernal fatherland the nuptials of a new
royal spouse are celebrated. All the rest, because it is fitting as,
she whom the Lord has exalted in the sky, the Catholic Church venerate
on Earth, that from the sanctity and miracles of her life, having been
reviewed� by a diligent and attentive inquisition and a distinct
examination and a solemn discussion, She plainly establish: even
though otherwise they even both in near and in remote parts would be
sufficient before; her acts having been lucidly known: We from the
common counsel and assent of our brother Cardinals and of all
prelates, at that time present at the Apostolic See, having drawn
confidence� from the Divine Omnipotence, by the authority of the
blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul, and Our own, we direct that the same
is to inscribed in the catalogue of Virgin Saints.
The Feast of St. Clare
�10. And for that
reason we warn and exhort all of you attentively through apostolic
mandates written by Us, to this extend that on the second day before
the Ides of August you celebrate devoutly and solemnly the feast of
the same Virgin and cause it to be celebrated by your subjects in a
venerable manner, so that you may merit to have her before God as your
pious and sedulous adjutrix. And so that the multitude of the
Christian people might flow to venerate her sepulchre in a more avid
and copious manner, let her festivity also be thoroughly honoured with
greater crowds, to all truly penitent and confessed, who come to it
with reverence on the feast of the same Virgin, and/or who might even
approach yearly during the octave days of her feast, having confided
humbly in her suffrages, We do, by the mercy of the Omnipotent God and
by the authority of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, loosen them
one year and forty days from the penances enjoined upon them.
Given at Anagni,
the sixth day before the
Calends of October,�
in the first year of our pontificate.
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