Saint Clare is remembered as the Cofoundress of the Order of Poor Ladies, or Poor Clares, and the first Abbess of San Damiano.  She was born at Assisi the 16th July 1194, and her feast is celebrated in the traditional liturgical calendar on the 12th August. From her tender youth Clare seems to have been endowed with uncommon virtue. As a child she was much given to prayer and mortifications.  Saint Francis of Assisi, who first met Clare when she was eighteen years of age while preaching a Lenten retreat at the Church of San Giorgio, in Assisi, immediately recognised in her a soul set apart by God … Read More