I’ve always been fascinated by how St. Clare drew so close to God while living most of her life entirely within the enclosure of San Damiano. While my life is vastly unlike her medieval one, I spend much of my time now at home. She and I have this in common: Where we reside is our home base for prayer. Clare has called to me to imagine the perimeter of my overgrown backyard as a stand-in for the 13th-century walls that surrounded her.
It’s often recounted how her name means light—St. Francis himself celebrated this. In following Clare, I’ve discovered that while it’s true she brings luster and radiance, she also embodies other aspects of that word. Light, as in airy, and gentle, and delicate, offering an antidote to the gravity and heaviness of the world. I’d like to share the ways she’s guided me within my own version of a cloister and helped uplift my heart to the grace unfolding in front of me.
I have heard her whisper in winter, within the hours of emptiness, with air so cold not even the year-round bluejays or crows cry out. I’ve thanked her as I’ve looked out my window and discovered that, with a few extra syllables, I am seeing a haiku:
Dried chrysanthemums / lay sideways near the woodpile, / dirt shaped like a flowerpot.
Near these chrysanthemums stood my St. Francis statue and a cluster of goldenrod blossoms, the heavy tassels once gorgeous yellow in late summer, but what was before me in January? Pale brown flowers. And yet, Clare teaches me: Let go into beauty you had not expected or envisioned. Let your prayers, like haiku, become even simpler in the night.
Goldenrod bends. / There is no gold. / Semicircle stems curve in snow.
Unexpected Grace
In full disclosure, I am not a gardener. I let nature decide what gets planted and enjoy what thrives. But last winter’s weather fluctuations killed all my rhododendrons, destroying a decade of vibrant, robust growth. Instead of an overgrown wall of fuchsia bells, all the leaves were burned, crispy and unsightly. There was nothing I could do to restore them; I had to cut them all down.
I went to the backyard with my shoulders heavy with disappointment. When I looked down, I spied a Lady Slipper. In 10 years of living here, I had not ever thought to ask God for a wild orchid like that. I had not prayed for it. It just emerged, true to its name: the airy petals like two ballerina toe-shoes full of rounded light. Photographing it from several angles, I let myself bask in the wonder of its magic.
And then it, too, was gone, as if it had not existed. In a few weeks it was replaced by a tiny field of wildflowers called asterids. When I looked up these weeds, I learned they attract Little Dark Gem Moths. Little Dark Gem Moths. Never have I sat in prayer whispering a petition that these winged creatures flutter into my life. They just appeared with their name like a perfect one-line haiku.
Is this what it was like for Clare? To live wholeheartedly within her cloistered world, and to accept all the magic that came and went—including St. Francis? She shows us how, among grief and loss, to spy unexpected grace. Because this is the nature of grace. It arrives unbidden. It comforts me in times of stress to turn my thoughts to things that she had that I have too. Stacked flowerpots and silvered spiderwebs. Rain falling outside our open windows marks both time passing and time staying still. She prayed and prayed, especially in her last years, sick, undernourished, bedridden. And she got closer to God. And then even closer.
Sunset spills into my bedroom, and I bless myself. The songs of the birds in the wetland backyard begin to thin out, then grow silent. They fall asleep together in the branches. Is this what twilight was like for Clare too? I feel the truth of gentleness and innocence. I keep learning this same lesson: I make prayer harder than it must be. In the whispers of Clare, I hear: Trust in the hidden birds. In the moonlight inching toward you. In the sudden hope of church bells ringing from somewhere beyond you can see.
Prayer
St. Clare,
You show us that God is in our homes,
and we can connect in all seasons, at all times of day
throughout our whole lives.
Help those especially struggling with illness
in their homes.
Help them find God’s peace within these interior spaces.
Bless them with the light you bring,
so they know how deeply they are loved.
