Who Is St Clare Of Assisi?

St Clare of Assisi
St Clare of Assisi was born July 16, 1194 Assisi and died August 11, 1253 (aged 59) Assisi. St Clare is an Italian saint and one of the first followers of Saint Francis of Assisi. St. Clare was born in Assisi, the eldest daughter of Favorino Sciffi, Count of Sasso-Rosso and his wife Ortolana. Traditional accounts say that Clare's father was a wealthy representative of an ancient Roman family, who owned a large palace in Assisi and a castle. Later in life, Ortolana entered Clare's monastery, as did Clare's sisters, Beatrix and Catarina (who took the name Agnes).
As a child, Clare was devoted to prayer. Although there is no mention of this in any historical record, it is assumed that Clare was to be married in line with the
Her feast day is on the 11th of August. Following her death, the order she founded was renamed in her honour as the Order of Saint Clare, commonly referred to today as the Poor Clare’s. According to history Pope Gregory IX wrote the initial guidelines for the women of Clare’s community. However St Clare later took this into her own hands and became the first woman to make independent decisions in her own order and write her own rule to compliment these. During this time female communities lived a life bound by rules written by men, thus Clare’s decision to compose a rule of her own was a very bold gesture and speculated to have caused some social unrest. The rule addresses poverty as the key to the life of the women in her community and later on the order became well known for this abject poverty and committed life of prayer. The prayer the community par took in Clare used to attain worldly victories that are credited with saving Assisi on two occasions. The first involved Clare raising the Host up in a window. As the Saracen mercenaries were placing ladders against the walls of her covenant she raised a monstrance containing the Eucharist before them and laid prostate and prayed. Thereby, the men fell from their ladders and ordered retreat of the troops from Assisi grounds. Soon after Assisi found itself under attack for the second time, Clare and her nuns prayed for the safety of their town and miraculously a storm swept through scattering the invaders and as it passed peace was restored to Assisi. St Clare of Assisi had a lot to offer her town and gave all that she could, but as a woman in the early Church there was only so great of an impact that she could