Restless Hearts · Week 2 · Grades 9–12
Guided Notes: St. Clare of Assisi
- Name
- Date
- Class
Follow along as your teacher presents. Fill in each section when its slide is on the screen.
St. Clare of Assisi
Assisi, 1212
Clare was born in blank 1 into the nobility of Assisi, a town split between old landed families and a rising merchant class. Marriage was the expected future for a noble daughter, and a tool of family strategy.
Francis, a merchant’s son of the same town, had renounced his blank 2 and gathered brothers who owned nothing and preached penance. The movement was new, and many thought it reckless.
On the night of Palm Sunday in 1212, at about 18, Clare left her family’s house and went to the chapel of the blank 3. There Francis cut her hair and she put on a rough habit. When relatives came to take her back by force, she held to the altar and would not return.
A forty-year argument for poverty
Write what happened in each year.
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1194 | Write your answer |
| 1212 | Write your answer |
| 1215 | Write your answer |
| 1216 | Write your answer |
| 1226 | Write your answer |
| 1228 | Write your answer |
| 1253 | Write your answer |
| 1255 | Write your answer |
The right to own nothing
Medieval convents normally lived on blank 4: land and rents that guaranteed food and safety. Clare asked for the opposite. She wanted her sisters to hold no property, even in common, and to live by their work and by whatever people gave.
Churchmen who respected her thought this blank 5 for enclosed women. According to her early biography, Pope Gregory IX offered to release her from her vow of poverty. She declined, saying she had no wish to be released from following Christ.
For Clare poverty was not a protest against wealth. It was a way of resembling Christ, who was poor in the manger and on the cross, and of keeping nothing between herself and blank 6.
Contemplation: what she did all day
Write one detail for each card.
| Card | The detail |
|---|---|
| Enclosure | Write your answer |
| The mirror | Write your answer |
| Illness | Write your answer |
| The Eucharist | Write your answer |
| Television | Write your answer |
Apply it
A classmate says Clare was simply Francis’s follower. Which fact best answers that? Circle one.
- A She came from a wealthier family than Francis did
- B She was canonized more quickly than Francis was
- C She left Assisi to found convents across Europe
- D She wrote her own rule and defended it for decades
Why is that the right answer?
Apply it
Which choice today is closest in spirit to Clare’s poverty? Circle one.
- A Giving up a platform because everyone says it is bad
- B Freely letting go of something good to attend to God
- C Refusing all technology because it is dangerous
- D Owning less so that others will admire your discipline
Why is that the right answer?
Virtues Clare lived
For each virtue, write how the saint lived it and one way you can practice it.
| Virtue | How the saint lived it | How I can practice it |
|---|---|---|
| Detachment | Write your answer | Write your answer |
| Contemplation | Write your answer | Write your answer |
| Fortitude | Write your answer | Write your answer |
Take a side
The tradition of Clare seeing Mass on her wall made her patron of television. Resolved: taking part in prayer or worship through a screen is real presence to it, not a lesser substitute.
My side: ☐ Agree ☐ Disagree
- In the tradition, Clare was too ill to attend. Does it matter why someone is watching instead of going?
- What can a livestream carry, and what can it not? Consider the Eucharist, the gathered community and your own body.
- Is attention enough to make you present, or does presence require being in the place?
- Clare chose enclosure and silence. Does a screen in the room help or hinder that kind of attention?
- Who gains most from broadcast worship, and who might use it to avoid showing up?
My strongest reason, with evidence from the slides:
The best argument for the other side, and my response:
Let us pray
Lord Jesus, poor in the manger and on the cross, be our treasure.
Loosen our grip on what we cannot keep, and quiet us to see you.
Let what we look at make us more like you.
St. Clare of Assisi, pray for us.
Amen.
My own prayer or intention:
Go and look up
Clare saw her rule approved two days before she died, and her sisters still live it. Her feast day is August 11.
One thing I learned today:
One question I still have:
How could the example of St. Clare of Assisi shape the way I live, online and offline?
Challenge: For seven days, keep the first ten minutes after you wake free of every screen, and give them to silent prayer. Note what changes in your attention.