August 11 | Saint Clare of Assisi

Welcome, young history buffs and curious minds, to My Daily Saint, the podcast that digs deep into the incredible lives of the saints, those remarkable people who shaped history and continue to inspire us today. Forget dusty old portraits and boring stories. Today, imagine a terrifying army storming your town. The walls are about to be breached, and everyone around you is panicking. Who steps up to save the day? A heavily armored knight? A brilliant general? No, a barefoot nun holding a golden vessel.

She steps to the wall, prays, and the massive army literally turns around and runs away. Or, imagine sneaking out of your wealthy mansion in the dead of night, leaving behind unimaginable wealth and a guaranteed life of luxury. Sounds crazy, right? Well, that is exactly what St. Clair of Assisi did.

Let's rewind to the year 1194 in Assisi, Italy, where Clair was born into a very powerful and noble family. From the time she was a little girl, she showed a really strong interest in religion. But her family expected her to do what all noble girls did back then, marry a wealthy man and keep up the high social status of the family.

But Claire's whole world turned upside down when she heard the preaching of another famous saint, Saint Francis of Assisi. Francis was preaching this wild, counter-cultural message about radical gospel poverty. He believed that having no possessions brought you closer to God. Claire was instantly inspired to follow this exact same path. So, she made a daring move. One night in 1212, she secretly ran away from her family's home. She slipped through the darkness and met Francis and his companions at a small chapel called the Porteantula.

Right there, she traded her noble status for a life of complete poverty. At first, Frances placed her with some Benedictine nuns. But soon, other women joined her, and she established her own monastery at San Damiano. She became the founder of a community of nuns known as the Poor Clares.

Here, the women lived an intensely strict life of prayer, enclosure, and absolute poverty. Now, when we say poverty, we don't just mean they didn't have nice things. Claire insisted on something that she called the privilege of poverty. Today, a privilege often means getting backstage passes or having the newest smartphone. But to Claire, her ultimate privilege was the right for her community to possess absolutely no property at all. She believed that totally relying on God was absolutely essential to their calling. This actually got her into a lot of trouble.

Church authorities constantly argued with her because they worried her community couldn't survive without some kind of property or income. But Claire fought for her radical poverty her entire life. Finally, getting the Pope's official approval for her strict rules just shortly before she died in 1253. Even though she lived completely enclosed in her monastery and governed her community through 40 years of illness and hardship, her influence was massive. High-ranking church leaders and even Saint Francis himself regularly came to her for spiritual advice.

And that brings us back to our dramatic introduction. According to historical tradition, during a terrifying military attack on the town of Assisi, Clare didn't hide. She took the Eucharist, the consecrated communion bread, which is often kept in a vessel called a monstrance, one of her official symbols, and had herself carried to the walls of the monastery. She prayed fiercely for protection. And miraculously, the attackers withdrew. Because of her incredible faith, she was canonized by Pope Alexander IV in 1255, just two years after her death.

Today, she is remembered as the patron saint of embroiderers, people with eye diseases, and, of course, her own order, the poor clairs. But she is also the patron saint of something very modern, television. This is because she miraculously saw a vision of a mass projected on her wall when she was too sick to attend. We live in a world that constantly tells us we need more. More clothes, more followers, more gadgets.

Claire found ultimate freedom by letting go of all that weight. Today, go through your room and find three things you don't really need. Maybe it's clothes you never wear, an old game, or something you're only keeping to look cool.

Donate those things. Give them away. And as you do, take a moment to pray, and ask God to help you rely more on Him and less on the stuff you own. Thank you for joining us on My Daily Saint. We look forward to sharing another incredible story of faith and courage with you tomorrow.