The prevailing image of St. Clare of Assisi, whose feast day we celebrate August 11, is that she desired to live in wretched poverty for the love of God. While there is some truth to that, I would describe her mission somewhat differently: as the head of her community of San Damiano, she wanted to lead others along a path of holiness by honoring the godliness of those she led.
In his book To Govern Is to Serve, Jacques Dalarun writes that medieval religious communities were a prototype of what can be considered ideal modern government—authority “that enfolds people more than it dominates them.” Clare is one of the model leaders he cites, and he devotes a chapter to a discussion of her washing the feet of her companions. Dalarun pays particular attention to an incident that probably occurred during the ritual of Holy Thursday, when Clare bent over to kiss the foot she was washing and was accidentally kicked in the mouth. Unfazed, she kissed the sole.
Whether in the course of a religious ceremony, waiting on her sisters at table, or tending to the sick of her community, Clare saw to their most humble and sometimes unpleasant needs. Her lifelong companion Pacifica de Guelfuccio observed, “[T]he blessed mother was humble, kind, and loving to her sisters.”
One might call this simple Christianity, but drawing on several dramatic incidents recounted in the transcript of testimony taken during the process of her canonization, I find that she exemplifies a concept of leadership that is also discussed in business schools—the leader as servant. This idea was first articulated in the business world by Robert K. Greenleaf, AT&T’s longtime Director of Management Development. Servant leaders combine humility with action. Aware of their own limitations, they value others and the contributions they can make if they are encouraged to do so. As a leader, Clare would undertake a threefold mission: she watched over and cared for her sisters, she protected them, and she sought to preserve in both her community and the wider world the principle of poverty that Francis taught and they lived.
The eldest of three sisters, Clare was forceful and determined—and she was fierce. This fierceness manifested in her early adolescence when she insisted that the food that she was served should be given to the poor. A few years later she refused to bend to her parents’ demand that she make an advantageous marriage. Instead, she ran away from them to live a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience to St. Francis and to gather women who would follow him.
Clare opposed taking any elevated title like “abbess” until after she successfully withstood a cardinal’s efforts to turn San Damiano into a cloister locked away from the people she wished to serve. Francis persuaded her that she had to at least accept that title, in keeping with existing religious orders, even if she did not use it.
After Francis’s death in 1226, she continued to serve her sisters and follow the wishes of Francis, but she was less conscientious in serving the newly elected Pope Gregory IX. He was concerned that the sisters’ extreme way of life would lead to disunion and heresy. Only after he provided Clare with a written document agreeing that San Damiano would not be required to own property did she agree to be shut from the world. By this time, Clare was more a prisoner of her failing body than she was of barred doors. She was bedridden, but her spirit remained free.
Clare corresponded with Agnes of Prague, sister of the king of Bohemia, who had established a convent in Prague. In her letters, Clare stressed the importance of poverty just as Francis had. The pope, on the other hand, had been counseling Agnes to be more moderate. When he discovered their correspondence, probably in 1238, he ended it. As far as we know, Clare and Gregory IX never communicated again.
Even in illness, Clare protected her followers. One day, she was lying in her sick bed when she heard the screams of her sisters below and learned that a troop of Muslim soldiers was invading their walls. To defend the women, she offered to serve as a hostage. Clutching a box containing the Eucharist, she was carried downstairs to confront the intruders. But upon seeing her, the men fled. Clare, then age fifty and lame, was truly heroic in the face of the perilous situation. Bishop Felice Accrocca, a medieval historian, says that it’s likely that the men intended no harm; they were soldiers of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II seeking the Franciscan brother who was serving as the mediator between Frederick and the Pope. But as far as the people of Assisi were concerned, Clare had saved the entire city from harm.
Near the end of her life, Clare set down guidelines in the form of a rule, including a requirement that future leaders preside by their good example rather than by the power of their office and that at least once a week they gather all members together to discuss and resolve the concerns of the entire community. She waited years for the necessary papal approval until finally, the day before she died, Pope Innocent IV came to her at San Damiano with his consent. His approval, however, was only for the convent of San Damiano. Clare’s rule is still in effect today, but only in the cloistered convent at the Basilica of St. Clare in Assisi. Not many leaders can claim a heritage that has lasted for more than eight centuries. One doubts she would have been surprised.
