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Saint Clare of Montefalco
Young Chiara (Clare) joins her sister Giovanna (Joan) and the small spiritual community of girls in Montefalco,
learning the life that would shape her from childhood.
Saint Clare of Montefalco–Patronage & Symbols
Born: 1268, Montefalco, Umbria, Italy
Died: 17 August 1308, Montefalco
Traditional Feast Day: 17 August—Honored for her steadfast devotion and mystical sharing in Christ’s Passion.
Modern Roman Calendar Feast Day: 17 August
Canonized: 8 December 1881 by Pope Leo XIII—following her beatification in 1737 by Pope Clement XII.
Patron Of: Healing of heart ailments, courage in trials, Augustinian nuns, the town of Montefalco, Pasay City, Philippines (Santa Clara de Montefalco).
Symbols in Art: Crucifix engraved in her heart, three small stones marked with symbols of the Holy Trinity, Augustinian habit.
Invoked For: Healing of physical and spiritual heart troubles, perseverance in suffering, deeper prayer, devotion to the Holy Trinity, and fidelity to one’s vocation.
Clare of the Cross, Chiara da Montefalco, Chiara della Croce
Saint Clare of Montefalco in traditional Augustinian habit,
portrayed in a moment of contemplative stillness.
Was Clare of Montefalco canonized in 1737 or in 1881?
Although some sources mistakenly claim that Clare was canonized in 1737, this was the year of her beatification by Pope Clement XII. Her formal canonization took place much later, in 1881, when Pope Leo XIII declared her a saint of the Catholic Church in Italy.
Did Clare of Montefalco die on August 17th or August 18th?
A few older references—notably the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) and the New Catholic Dictionary (1922)—give 18 August 1308 as the date of her death or feast. This appears to trace back to Butler’s Lives of the Saints (18th century), compiled well before Clare’s canonization and without Roman liturgical authority. Since her canonization by Pope Leo XIII in 1881, both the Augustinian Order and the Roman calendar have observed her dies natalis on 17 August. The date was not revised during the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, which postdate both Butler’s work and the Catholic Encyclopedia repeating the alternate date.
"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live,
but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh
I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
—Galatians 2:20 (RSV2CE)
Early Life and Family Background
Clare was born in 1268 in Montefalco, a prosperous hill town in Umbria, Italy. Her family belonged to a prosperous citizen household of Montefalco; her father, Damiano, owned property and had the resources to support his daughters' religious vocations. This social position gave Clare an education and stability uncommon for most medieval women, though she would spend her entire life rejecting comfort in favor of severe penance.
From her earliest years, Clare was drawn to religious life. The Franciscan movement had swept through Umbria in the previous generation, and its emphasis on poverty, penance, and devotion to Christ's Passion shaped the spiritual climate of the region. Clare's elder sister, Giovanna, had already embraced this fervor. Around 1275, when Clare was approximately six years old, her father Damiano established a small dwelling for Giovanna and a handful of other devout women who wished to live under a rule of prayer and mortification.
Clare joined this community as a child. In doing so she effectively embraced the life of a Franciscan tertiary within her sister's small community. The women lived informally. They were not yet bound by an approved religious rule, but followed a life of silence, manual work, and contemplative prayer inspired by Franciscan ideals. For fifteen years, young Clare learned the disciplines of religious life under her sister's guidance, embracing fasting, vigils, and works of charity as the foundation of her spiritual formation.
Remembering Clare of the Cross
Election as Abbess and the Adoption of the Augustinian Rule
When Giovanna died in 1291, the small community faced a crisis. Without formal organization or an approved rule, they risked dissolution. The women elected Clare as their new superior despite her youth. She was only twenty-three years old. Clare accepted the office reluctantly, considering herself unworthy, but her confessor and the local bishop encouraged her to take up the responsibility.
Clare immediately recognized that the community needed formal ecclesiastical approval to survive and grow. Informal groups of religious women were viewed with suspicion by Church authorities in this period, particularly after the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) mandated that all new religious houses adopt an existing approved rule.
It was in 1290, shortly before Giovanna's death, that the Bishop of Spoleto formally established the community under the Augustinian Rule. This sequence is important: Clare's election as abbess came in 1291, after the bishop had already regularized the community.
The choice of the Augustinian Rule was significant. Unlike the strict Franciscan Rule, which demanded absolute poverty and required papal approval for female communities, the Augustinian Rule allowed more flexibility in governance and property ownership while still emphasizing communal life, obedience, and charity. This pragmatic choice gave Clare's community the stability and legitimacy it needed to flourish. The house was formally named the Monastery of the Holy Cross (Monastero della Santa Croce).
By the time of Clare's election, the original hermitage was too small. Clare supervised the construction of a larger stone monastery and church, traditionally said to have been completed by 1303 (some scholars date portions slightly earlier), to accommodate the growing number of women seeking admission. The new monastery became one of the most prominent religious houses in the region.
Giovanna, Clare, and a third sister overlooking the early construction of the Monastery of the Holy Cross,
on the hillside below Montefalco.
Leadership and Monastic Life
Contemporary sources provide a detailed picture of Clare's tenure as abbess. Our most substantial account comes from the diocesan informative process of 1309 and the apostolic process of 1318–1319, later edited together as the Processus of her cause, commissioned by Pope John XXII. This document contains sworn testimony from the nuns who lived under Clare's leadership, as well as statements from townspeople and clergy who knew her. These depositions describe Clare as a wise and loving superior who balanced firm discipline with maternal care for each sister's needs.
She organized the common life according to the Augustinian Rule, assigning tasks for manual work: weaving, sewing, tending the garden. She ensured ample time for the Divine Office, private prayer, and spiritual reading (lectio was the contemporary term; "lectio divina" is a later monastic expression). Clare herself participated in all communal labor and never exempted herself from the hardest tasks. She was known to rise before matins to prepare the chapel and light the candles. Despite chronic pain and illness, she refused special accommodations.
The Processus records that Clare's counsel was sought not only by her nuns but by lay people from Montefalco and surrounding towns. She was known for her spiritual discernment and her ability to console those in distress. Her reputation for holiness spread throughout Umbria during her lifetime.
Mystical Life and the Vision of the Cross
Clare's interior life was marked by profound mystical experiences, though she often endured long periods of spiritual dryness. Her devotion centered steadfastly on the Passion of Christ. She meditated constantly on the crucifixion, kept a small crucifix with her at all times, and encouraged her nuns to do the same.
The defining moment of her spiritual life occurred in 1294. According to testimony recorded in the Processus, Clare experienced an ecstatic vision during prayer. She saw Jesus approaching her as a weary pilgrim, bent under the weight of His cross. Clare knelt and asked, "Domine, quo vadis?" ("My Lord, where are you going?") Christ replied that He had searched the entire world for a place strong enough to bear His cross and had finally found it: in her heart. At that moment, Clare felt a sharp, burning pain pierce her chest. The pain never left her for the remaining fourteen years of her life.
From that day forward, Clare told her sisters, "If you seek the Cross of Christ, take my heart; there you will find the suffering Lord." Her language described the cross as truly present in her heart. This reflects her own reported understanding, as preserved in the testimonies. Despite her agony, she remained outwardly joyful and never complained. Her nuns later testified that they often saw her face radiant during prayer, even as her body was wracked with pain.
'Domine quo vadis?' , 'Lord, whither goest Thou?'
Christ carrying His Cross through a narrow medieval street, recalling the vision granted to Saint Clare of Montefalco.
Death and the Post-Mortem Examination
Clare died on August 17, 1308, at approximately forty years of age, after a prolonged illness. In her final days, she spoke repeatedly to her nuns about the cross planted in her heart, urging them to "look for it" after her death. The nuns, recalling these words, requested permission from local Church authorities to perform a post-mortem examination of her body.
On August 18, 1308, the day after her death, a group of nuns conducted the examination in the presence of witnesses, including clergy and physicians. The procedures followed customary practices for examining the bodies of those reputed to be saints: the body was opened, and the heart and other organs were removed for inspection.
When Clare's heart was extracted and cut open, the nuns testified that they found what appeared to be a crucifix formed in the cardiac tissue. The crucifix was described as approximately the size of a thumb, with a clearly defined corpus. Additionally, they claimed to see symbols of the instruments of the Passion: a crown of thorns, three nails, and a scourge, formed in white fibrous material within the chambers of the heart. Her gallbladder was found to contain three small, perfectly round stones of identical size and weight, interpreted as symbols of the Holy Trinity.
The discovery immediately attracted attention and skepticism. In 1309 the bishop's vicar, Berengarius of Saint-Affrique, convened physicians, jurists, and theologians to examine the autopsy findings, the preserved heart and gallbladder, and the testimonies of those who had been present. Under oath they stated that they could not detect any fraud and that the forms seen in the heart and the three small stones from the gallbladder went beyond what contemporary medical knowledge could explain. Their depositions were incorporated into the diocesan informative process and later into the apostolic Processus sent to Pope John XXII.
The heart and the three stones were preserved as relics. To this day, they are displayed in the Sanctuary of Saint Clare in Montefalco. Clare's body, which has shown signs traditionally described as incorruption, is enshrined in the church and remains a site of pilgrimage.
From the First Inquiries to Canonization (1309–1881)
Clare's reputation for holiness was immediate. Within months of her death, miracles were attributed to her intercession, and the people of Montefalco venerated her as a saint. In 1309, the Bishop of Spoleto opened a formal inquiry (processus informativus) into her life, virtues, and miracles. This investigation produced the Acta or Processus, the earliest biographical source for Clare's life, compiled from sworn depositions of witnesses.
In 1318, Pope John XXII, residing in Avignon, ordered a papal commission to evaluate Clare's cause for canonization. Cardinal Napoleone Orsini led the commission. However, the cause was suspended due to political instability in Italy, the ongoing Avignon papacy, and the Church's focus on other pressing matters. The canonization process stalled for over three centuries.
Despite the lack of formal canonization, Clare's cult continued to flourish locally. In 1624, Pope Urban VIII granted permission to the Augustinian Order (August 14, 1624) and to the Diocese of Spoleto (September 28, 1624) to celebrate a liturgical Mass and Office in her honor. This papal approval effectively recognized Clare as "Blessed" within her region and religious order, though it was not yet a universal beatification.
In 1673, Pope Clement X ordered Clare's name inscribed in the Roman Martyrology under August 17, giving her cult official recognition within the Church's liturgical calendar.
The formal beatification finally occurred on April 13, 1737, when Pope Clement XII officially declared Clare "Blessed," granting permission for public veneration. In 1738, a new apostolic process was opened to examine additional miracles and testimonies. The Congregation of Rites ratified these findings on September 17, 1743. However, final approval of her heroic virtues was delayed and only completed in the 1850s after yet another round of investigations.
At last, on December 8, 1881, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Pope Leo XIII solemnly canonized Clare of Montefalco in a ceremony at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. The canonization decree enrolled her in the universal catalog of saints. Her feast day of August 17 was confirmed for the entire Catholic Church.
The process had taken 573 years from her death, one of the longest documented canonization processes in the Church's history.
Veneration and Patronage Today
Saint Clare of Montefalco is honored as the patron saint of Montefalco, where her feast is celebrated with special solemnity each August 17. She is also popularly invoked as the patron saint of those suffering from heart disease and cardiac ailments, a modern devotional association rooted in the signs found in her heart.
Her intercession is sought by those who struggle to bear suffering with faith and by those who desire a deeper participation in Christ's Passion. Pilgrims continue to visit her shrine in Montefalco to venerate her incorrupt body and the preserved relics of her heart.
She is sometimes called Saint Clare of the Cross (Santa Chiara della Croce), in recognition of the mystical vision that defined her life and the physical signs of the Passion discovered in her body after death.
Primary Historical Sources
Diocesan informative process (1309) and apostolic canonization process (1318–1319), later edited together as the Processus in Il processo di canonizzazione di Chiara da Montefalco, ed. Enrico Menestò (Spoleto, 1991): sworn testimonies on Clare's life, virtues, miracles, and the post-mortem examination
Vita Sanctae Clarae de Cruce by Berengarius of Saint-Affrique, based on his role as episcopal vicar and examiner in the early inquiries
Episcopal records of the Bishop of Spoleto (1290–1303)
Papal mandates and commissions of Pope John XXII concerning the cause (1318)
Secondary / Reference Sources
Leonardi–Menestò (eds.), Chiara da Montefalco e il suo tempo
Butler, Alban: Lives of the Saints
Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), St. Clare of Montefalco
Dicastery for the Causes of Saints
Augustinian Order, historical documentation
Treccani Encyclopedia: Chiara da Montefalco, santa
Santiebeati.it
Municipal and archival materials from the City of Montefalco
Honor Saint Clare of Montefalco with us in prayer and scripture.
This video tribute invites you to meditate on her witness,
unite your petitions with her intercession, and remember her steadfast faith in Christ.
