The Poor Ladies

In a secret and dramatic flight, Clare left her family home late at night on Palm Sunday, 1212, accompanied by her cousin and collaborator, Bona, to enact her desire. At the small chapel of Our Lady of the Angels she was received by Francis and a group of Friars Minor. Clare's long hair was cut and she exchanged her Palm Sunday finery for a rough gray habit. In this symbolic gesture the seed was planted for the beginning of a new Order in the history of the Church, one different from any other of that period.

After a short time with the Benedictine sisters in Bastia, Clare moved to San Damiano with Agnes, her sister, who had then joined her. Here she was to spend the remainder of her life. Clare and Agnes were soon joined by many other women of Assisi, eager as they were to live the feminine dimension of the gospel life of poverty, chastity and obedience that Francis inspired. Although Francis and his followers were itinerant preachers, Clare and her sisters witnessed the gospel in a different way; they remained at San Damiano, living a life of prayer and penance. They became the wholly contemplative branch of the Franciscan Order.

Even during her lifetime Clare witnessed a rapid growth of monasteries of Poor Ladies, as they called themselves. By the time of her death in 1253 there were abut 40 groups of these women in Italy and another 60 scattered throughout Europe. Today, after 800 years, there are Poor Clare monasteries in some 67 countries in the world where women are living the gospel way of life Clare embraced.