Sermon
9th August 26
Clare, like Francis, was born into a relatively prosperous family in Assisi. She lived in a house near the Cathedral of San Rufino, where both she and Francis would have been baptised. On or around her 18th birthday in 1211 or 1212, she went to the Cathedral for mass on Palm Sunday. Then she ran away. She ran down the hill into the valley beneath to that little Church of the Porziuncula, about which we thought last Sunday, and she demanded to join Francis and his fellow friars who, of course, were all men.
Francis, not knowing what to do, packed her off to a nearby convent, where she was soon joined by her sister Agnes. Eventually, Francis agreed to her request to join the Franciscans, tonsured her and Agnes at the Porziuncula, made her the foundress of the second order, an enclosed order to be known as the Poor Ladies of San Damiano, as their first home was the Church of San Damiano, where, years before, Francis had heard the call from the crucifix “rebuild my Church”.
Soon other women joined Clare and Agnes and their order grew. Clare outlived Francis by many years. After her death in 1253, her body was buried in the Church of San Giorgio, which eventually was to be rebuilt, becoming the great basilica which now bears her name, and is the Mother Church of the second order. We went there on our Parish Pilgrimage and visited her tomb down in the crypt. On the main floor we saw the Chiara Dossal, now displayed to the left of the High Altar. Steve has put this on the outside back cover of your service booklet. Made around 1283, it shows eight scenes from Clare’s life, around the central figure of the saint.
The role of women in the Church remains a contentious issue. There is a significant campaign within the Roman Catholic Church for the ordination of women, and you will know how the issue has divided our own Church of England in recent years. We were thinking about this on Easter Day. We saw how the Church had played down the role of women, contemptuously dismissing Mary Magdalene as the woman who was a sinner. Yet if we dig more carefully into the gospels, she appears to be one of a group of women who accompanied Jesus during his ministry. She was possibly a wealthy widow who, with others, formed a sort of support team, giving practical help to Jesus and his other disciples, freeing them up for their ministry.
In the same way, Francis responded to Clare’s insistence on being allowed to join in his work. They worked together to find ways in which all could serve God in the Franciscan order: both men and women. As we prepare to move into a new phase in the life of our Church and parish, we know that each of us have a role to play: whether young or not so young; whether male or female.
Amen
