The Story of Clara d'Assisi

Hubbard, in his “Memorials of a Half Century,” thus speaks of the naming of Lake St. Clair by La Salle: “ The saint, whose name was really bestowed, and whose day is August 12th, is the female Sainte Claire, ‘the foundress of the order of Franciscan nuns of the thirteenth century, known as Poor Claires.’  Clara d’Assisi was a beautiful daughter of a nobleman of great wealth, who early dedicated herself to a religious life, and went to St. Francis to ask for advice.  On Palm Sunday she went to church with her family, dressed in rich attire, where St. Francis cut off her long hair with his own hands, and threw over her the coarse penitential robe of the order.  She entered the convent of San Domiano, in spite of the opposition of family and friends.  It is related of her that, on one occasion, when the Saracens came to ravage the convent, she arose from her bed, where she had been long confined and place the pyx, which contained the host, upon the threshold; she knelt down and began to sing, whereupon the infidels threw down their arms and fled.  Sancta Clara is a favorite saint all over Europe, and her fame in the New World ought not to be spoiled-like the record of the dead in a battle-gazette-by a misspelt name.

”F. Way, in his work on Rome, published in 1875 says: “Sancta Clara has her tomb at the Minerva, and she dwelt between the Pantheon and the Thermae of Agrippa.  The tenement she occupied at the time of her decease still exists, but is not well known.  In a little triangular place on or near Via Tor, Argentina, lodged the first convent of the Clarisses.  If, crossing the gate-way, you will face two windows of a slightly raised ground-floor.  It was there Innocent IV visited her, and there, on August 12th1253, listening to the reading of the Passion, in the midst of her weeping nuns, died the first abbess of the Clarisses, and the founder of 4,000 religious housed.