“Place your mind before the mirror of eternity; place your soul in the brilliance of glory.” – St. Clare of Assisi

On 11 August, the Church celebrates the Feast of St. Clare of Assisi, one of the great saints of the Franciscan family and a woman whose quiet but determined witness continues to speak powerfully to Christians living more than eight centuries after her death.

For Secular Franciscans, this is a particularly joyful feast. Although our Order traces its particular vocation to St. Francis of Assisi, we belong to a much larger Franciscan family. Within that family, Clare stands alongside Francis as one of its great witnesses to what can happen when a person takes the Gospel seriously enough to allow it to transform everything.

Here in Singapore, the celebration has an added significance as we extend our warmest feast-day greetings to the brothers and sisters of the St. Clare Fraternity.

But who was St. Clare, and why should her life matter to Secular Franciscans, or indeed to Christians trying to follow Christ amid the pressures of ordinary life today?

A Young Woman Who Chose a Different Life

Clare was born in Assisi around 1193 into a wealthy and socially prominent family. Hers could have been a life of comfort, status and security.

Instead, as a young woman, she became deeply moved by the preaching and example of St. Francis of Assisi. Francis and his early companions were attempting something radical: to take seriously the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to live with simplicity, humility, fraternity and complete dependence upon God.

Clare recognised in this way of life something for which her own heart was searching.

Around the age of eighteen, she left behind the future that had been expected of her and committed herself to following Christ in poverty. Other women soon joined her, including her sister Agnes, and a community eventually formed at San Damiano, just outside Assisi.

This community developed into what we now know as the Order of St. Clare, commonly called the Poor Clares, the contemplative branch of the Franciscan family.

Clare was not simply copying Francis. She shared his Gospel vision, but lived and developed it through her own vocation. She eventually wrote a Rule for her sisters, becoming the first woman known to have written a religious Rule for women that received papal approval. Her determination to preserve what became known as the “Privilege of Poverty” reflected her conviction that her sisters should place their ultimate security not in possessions, property or status, but in God.

Francis and Clare: Two Expressions of One Gospel Vision

It can be tempting to imagine Francis as the active missionary and Clare simply as the contemplative nun who remained behind at San Damiano.

Their relationship was richer than that.

Francis and Clare embodied complementary dimensions of the Franciscan charism. Francis travelled, preached, served and called people to conversion. Clare lived a largely enclosed life centred upon contemplation, fraternity, poverty and prayer.

Yet both were responding to the same question: What would happen if we really allowed the Gospel to shape the way we live?

Francis demonstrated that Gospel life must be lived in our encounters with people, particularly the poor and marginalised. Clare reminds us that such action must remain rooted in contemplation, in allowing ourselves first to be transformed by Christ.

That is why her famous invitation remains so relevant: “Place your mind before the mirror of eternity.”

“Place your mind before the mirror of eternity.”

The Christian is invited to look continually towards Christ and, through contemplation, gradually become more like the One upon whom he or she gazes.

What Does St. Clare Have to Do with Secular Franciscans?

This is an important question because Secular Franciscans are not Poor Clares.

The Franciscan family traditionally speaks of several distinct but related expressions of the Franciscan charism. The friars belong to the First Order; Clare and her contemplative sisters constitute the Second Order; and the Secular Franciscan Order (Ordo Franciscanus Saecularis or OFS) developed from the penitential movement associated with Francis for people who wished to embrace Franciscan Gospel life while remaining in their homes, families, professions and communities.

A Secular Franciscan therefore does not ordinarily leave the world for a monastery or friary.

Our Franciscan vocation is lived within the world.

It is lived around the family dining table, in the office, at school, in hospitals and businesses, in parishes and neighbourhoods, in caring for ageing parents, raising children, serving those in need, making ethical decisions at work, caring for creation, reconciling relationships and responding peacefully to conflict.

And this is precisely where Clare has something important to teach us.

Clare Teaches Us to Be Contemplatives in the World

Clare’s life was profoundly contemplative. For a Secular Franciscan, contemplation cannot mean withdrawing permanently from everyday responsibilities. Instead, Clare challenges us to develop a contemplative way of seeing within those responsibilities.

Before reacting, can we learn to see Christ?
Before judging another person, can we recognise his or her dignity?
Before making a decision, can we ask what the Gospel requires?
Before accumulating more, can we ask what is actually necessary?
Before allowing anxiety to determine our actions, can we entrust ourselves to God’s providence?

Clare’s monastery was San Damiano. Our “San Damiano” may be our home, workplace, parish, school or community. The surroundings are different. The invitation to conversion is not.

Lady Poverty: More Than Having Less

Clare shared Francis’ extraordinary love for what the Franciscan tradition calls Lady Poverty.

This should not be misunderstood as romanticising destitution or suggesting that material deprivation is good in itself.

Franciscan poverty is fundamentally about freedom.

It asks what possesses us.

Money can possess us. So can reputation, career, comfort, influence, control, resentment, technology, social status and even our insistence upon always being right.

Clare’s radical simplicity asks the modern Christian a difficult question:

How much do I really need in order to live well, love generously and follow Christ freely?

Her example is especially relevant in a prosperous and highly consumer-oriented society such as Singapore. Simplicity does not necessarily require abandoning our professions, homes or responsibilities. It does require examining whether possessions and ambitions are serving our vocation, or whether we have gradually begun serving them.

For Secular Franciscans, this becomes a practical spirituality: living gratefully rather than possessively, sharing generously, resisting excessive consumption and remembering that creation and material goods are gifts entrusted to our stewardship.

Clare and the Eucharist

Clare’s spirituality was also profoundly Christ-centred.

Franciscan tradition particularly remembers her devotion to Christ present in the Eucharist. Stories surrounding the defence of San Damiano and Assisi have long associated Clare’s courageous trust in God with the Blessed Sacrament. Whatever distinctions historians make regarding the details of those accounts, the spiritual truth expressed by the tradition is unmistakable: Clare placed Christ at the centre of her security.

That is an important reminder for Secular Franciscans.

Our vocation cannot be reduced to environmentalism, social service, peace-building or simply being kind people, important as all of these are.

At its heart, the Franciscan vocation begins with Jesus Christ.

The Rule of the Secular Franciscan Order describes our vocation as observing the Gospel of Jesus Christ following the example of St. Francis, going “from Gospel to life and life to the Gospel.” The works of the Franciscan life flow from that encounter with Christ.

Clare helps us remember where the centre is.

A Sister to the Secular Franciscan Order

There is also a formal bond between Secular Franciscans and the contemplative Franciscan sisters.

The General Constitutions of the Secular Franciscan Order call Secular Franciscans to live in “life-giving reciprocal communion” with the other members of the Franciscan family. Significantly, they also call Secular Franciscans to nurture a special affection towards the sisters of contemplative life, who, like St. Clare, bear witness through their prayer and contemplative vocation.

Clare, therefore, is not merely an interesting figure from Franciscan history.

She belongs to our family.

Her contemplative spirit reminds the active Secular Franciscan that apostolic work without prayer can become mere activity. Her poverty challenges our attachment to possessions. Her fraternity teaches us that holiness is not an individual project. Her perseverance reminds us that fidelity sometimes requires courage over many years.

And her relationship with Francis reminds us that there is room within one Franciscan family for very different vocations united by the same Gospel.

A Special Word to the St. Clare Fraternity in Singapore

For our brothers and sisters of the St. Clare Fraternity in Singapore, your fraternity’s name carries both a blessing and a challenge.

To bear the name of St. Clare is to inherit an invitation to become what her name itself evokes: light.

Not necessarily a loud light.

Clare did not travel across Europe preaching to crowds. Much of her life unfolded within the relatively small enclosure of San Damiano. Yet from that small place, through prayer, fidelity and love, her influence spread throughout the Church and continues eight centuries later.

That offers a beautiful image of fraternity.

A fraternity does not need to be large or prominent to make a difference.

It becomes a light when its members genuinely care for one another.
It becomes a light when prayer precedes action.
It becomes a light when disagreements are met with humility and reconciliation.
It becomes a light when newcomers encounter warmth rather than exclusivity.
It becomes a light when the poor and forgotten are treated as brothers and sisters.
It becomes a light when its members leave each fraternity gathering strengthened to live the Gospel in their homes, workplaces, parishes and communities.

And perhaps most importantly, it becomes a light when people encountering its members encounter something of Christ.

Clare’s Challenge to All of Us

St. Clare’s feast is therefore not only a celebration for Franciscans.

Her life poses questions relevant to anyone trying to live faithfully in the modern world.

What am I holding onto that prevents me from being free?
Where have possessions, status or security become more important than trust in God?
Do I make enough room for silence and contemplation?
When people encounter me, what do they see reflected?

Clare invites us to place ourselves continually before Christ, the “mirror of eternity”, and allow what we see there to change us.

For those of us living in the secular world, perhaps this is the particular gift she offers.

We do not have to live within the walls of San Damiano to learn from Clare.
We can carry something of San Damiano within us.
We can create spaces for prayer amid crowded schedules.
We can choose simplicity amid consumerism.
We can practise gratitude amid dissatisfaction.
We can choose fraternity amid individualism.
We can trust God amid uncertainty.
And we can reflect Christ in the ordinary places where God has planted us.

On this Feast of St. Clare of Assisi, we therefore give thanks for our sister Clare and for the contemplative dimension she brings to the Franciscan family.

And we offer a particularly joyful greeting to the brothers and sisters of the St. Clare Fraternity in Singapore.

May your fraternity continue to bear her name with joy. May you be a community of prayer and fraternity, simplicity and generosity, courage and peace. And like Clare, may your lives quietly but unmistakably direct others towards Christ.

Follow St Clare Fraternity on OFS Facebook for updates and announcements here.

Happy Feast Day of St. Clare of Assisi!

St. Clare of Assisi,
pray for the St. Clare Fraternity in Singapore,
pray for all our fraternities,
pray for the Secular Franciscan Order,
and pray for us. Amen.