Encountering Saint Clare
Aspett. It is not yet time.
I heard this during the consecration as I knelt just outside the Capella ev St. Agnes, the little side chapel in Santa Chiara in Assisi, where a priest was celebrating the Holy Mass. It came as an answer to my prayer asking our Lord whether or not I should go to Rome.
That was followed by:
There is grace in this place.
Both of these words, aspett (shortened from aspetta - Italian for wait - by my grandmother when she was telling me to wait and not be in such a hurry) and grace, had been repeating in my mind throughout my pilgrimage.
Begin with Prayer.
After answering me for the second time that morning, our Lord had brought to my mind the image of the Oratory of Santa Chiara, a place of prayer that St. Clare dedicated to the Holy Virgin and which I had seen when I had first visited San Damiano a few days earlier.
I have much yet to do in your heart, my daughter.
And somewhere in all of this, I began to weep, overcome with consolation.
Sister Eliana came to me as I stood. “I know you already have your answer,” she told me. I nodded, smiling through my tears. I had seen this lovely Sister, with whom our Lord had connected me a few days earlier, upon entering the church and had quickly whispered to her to please pray for my discernment.
I was seeking the Lord’s direction, seeking His will about where to go next. And He had answered.
He had also answered the first time I had asked that morning, back in my room, while texting another wonderful Sister, Sister Francesca, whom I had met a a couple of weeks earlier in Medjugorje. She lived in Italy and had graciously told me to call upon her if she could be of any help during my trip. I had already done so once about Loreto, and knowing she wouldn’t mind, reached out to her again to find out which train station to go to in Rome.
But while texting her my questions, I heard in my thoughts the words to the song from Holy Thursday,
“Stay with me, remain here with me, watch and pray.”
And the tears of consolation had come then as well. But still, sitting with my notes on the train schedules spread out before me, I processed my decision by talking (as I often do) about what I could most realistically see in a day trip to Rome with Sister Francesca - who just happened to be near her phone, saw my text, and invited me to call. Again, all God’s grace. Sister Francesca shared her thoughts about Rome and reminded me that whatever I did, God would be within me.
Why, why did I doubt?
Maybe it was the combination of lack of sleep and so many unknowns on my trip with a very loose itinerary or my own intention all along to see Rome, but whatever the reason, I wanted to hear Him again. So I had walked quickly down to Santa Chiara, checked in with a taxi driver just in case, and headed into the church to pray before our Lord.
And in our Lord’s infinite patience and mercy, He confirmed what He had already shown me. I was not to go to Rome. He wanted me to simply stay and pray, to spend the day with Him in Assisi. So I headed up the street and made my way down the hill to San Damiano to the Oratory of St. Clare, a place of prayer.
Although I had prayed Vespers the last two evenings at San Damiano, I had not been back to the Oratory. This visit was different than the first. This time I entered with our Lord, removed my sandals, pulled out my journal and just sat against the back wall, my rosary in one hand and my pen in the other.
I sat for a long time in the silence, touching the smooth stone of the floor, profoundly moved that Clare had also sat or knelt in this very place hundreds of years before, spending time praying and being in the presence of our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament which was kept in some type of small ciborium in an opening to the left of the little altar. St. Clare had called upon our Lord in that same ciborium to defend her nuns and the city of Assisi from the attacking Saracens, so great was her trust. She also heard an answer to her prayer, a prayer asking Him to defend them since she herself was too weak to do so.
Clare heard a voice coming from the ciborium say, “I will keep them always in My care.” She then told her Sisters,
“Fear not, my little daughters,
trust Jesus.”
Clare placed the Eucharist before them, and the Saracens fled!
I stayed in St. Clare’s Oratory until a Friar came in to remind me that they close San Damiano from noon until two o’clock. I then spent the rest of that day wandering around Assisi being present with our Lord, much more present and in His peace than had I gone to Rome.
As I reflect, there is still much to unpack from my pilgrimage and my time in Assisi, but a few of the pieces are starting to come together, and a surprising connection is an invitation to befriend and learn from St. Clare.
It makes more sense now that the first time I entered Santa Chiara, I had found myself immediately drawn down to my knees, weeping and unable to stop despite no little embarrassment at such unexpected public emotion. After several long minutes, the sobs slowly subsided, and I rose and made my way through the church and down the stairs to pray for my intentions before the tomb of St. Clare.
Since my lodging was just up the road, I had gone to daily morning Mass at the side chapel in Santa Chiara, which is where the original San Damiano crucifix hangs and where the Poor Clare’s attend the Mass from behind a grill.
I had knowingly prayed beneath that original crucifix from the thirteenth century, the crucifix so important to the call of St. Francis, and by extension St. Clare, yet it wasn't until about two weeks later, at home at morning Mass gazing upon the large crucifix in the church which I had attended throughout my childhood that the graces and tears came. I had knelt beneath the very crucifix from which our Lord had spoken to St. Francis: "Francis, go and repair My House, which, as you can see, is falling into ruin."
Francis’ first call to conversion came through an encounter with Our Lady. My own call to write has also come through the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, so I should not be surprised that she and our Lord drew me to Assisi.
Moved by what she saw in Francis, St. Clare gave up everything to follow our Lord, and her reward was deep and enduring faith and intimacy, and profound trust in Him. I, too, received the grace to say yes to our Lord and share an intimacy with Him because of it. I believe there is much St. Clare can teach me, can teach all of us, to grow in even greater faith and trust.
I have accepted this surprising invitation to befriend and learn more about St. Clare, and I invite you to do the same. I can almost hear her voice in these words from a letter she wrote to St. Francis:
Tell them not to be in such a hurry! Ask them to sit and feel our Lord’s presence.
Let them know,
“There is an inner garden!”
It is the garden of our hearts in which our Lord desires to dwell.