… THE MOON SHONE SO MUCH MORE BRIGHTLY …
The light of Assisi did not go out when St Francis died in 1226, but intensified in the person of Saint Clare. It was not just because she lived longer than he did, but rather because with the sun eclipsed the moon shone so much more brightly over the town of Assisi. Saint Clare was a noble woman, a young girl, who inspired by Saint Francis and his joyful vision of life left her family to join him on the evening of Palm Sunday, March 20, 1212.
It is perhaps because she lived an enclosed life, in only one place, that the light of Saint Clare became more intense. Her little convent became a heaven where the Blessed Eucharist reigned supreme and where like Saint Francis she poured out her practical love on her sisters and the people of Assisi who brought to her all their troubles. While her own sister, Saint Agnes of Assisi was sent out to found a number of other convents of the Poor Ladies, St Clare lived her whole life in the convent of San Damiano in Assisi. So famous had she become for her holiness by the time she died that Pope Alexander IV wished to canonize her at her funeral and although stopped by his cardinals, he virtually canonised her by telling the friars to say the Office of Virgins rather than the prayers for the dead. Two years later she was canonized.
