Clare of Assisi - When You have loved, You shall be chaste

December 2, 2009

--- On Wed, 2/12/09, Poetry Chaikhana <ivan wrote:

Here's your Daily Poem from the Poetry Chaikhana --

When You have loved, You shall be chaste

By Clare of Assisi(1193? - 1254)

English version by Regis J. Armstrong, OFM CAP & Ignatius C. Brady, OFM

When You have loved, You shall be chaste; when You have touched, You shall become pure; when You have accepted, You shall be a virgin.Whose power is stronger,Whose generosity is more abundant,Whose appearance more beautiful,Whose love more tender,Whose courtesy more gracious.In Whose embrace You are already caught up;Who has adorned Your breast with precious stones and has placed priceless pearls in Your ears and has surrounded You with sparkling gems as though blossoms of springtime and placed on Your head a golden crown as a sign of Your holiness.

-- from Francis and Clare: The Complete Works: The Classics of Western Spirituality, Translated by Regis J. Armstrong, OFM CAP / Translated by Ignatius C. Brady, OFM

Amazon.com / Photo by ahisgett /

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Everything is an opportunityfor awareness.

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Hi Alan -When we really read this poem, we discover that it has a sort of monastic, spiritualized eroticism to it. Notice the repeated counterpoint of the first line:When You have loved <-> You shall be chastewhen You have touched <-> You shall become purewhen You have accepted <-> You shall be a virginWhen God is the Beloved, ideas of celibacy and sexual purity are turned on their head. Virginity is attained by the very act of yielding to the Divine embrace.I also especially like the line, "In Whose embrace You are already caught up..." In the normal consciousness, we tend to think that we are bereft of God's embrace and must desperately seek it out. St. Clare is saying, no, we are, in fact, already enwrapped in that embrace. The only effort necessary is to truly recognize it.Those final phrases, being adorned by God

with "precious stones" and "sparkling gems." That suggests to me how spiritual awakening not only reveals our own inner light, but also how the world around us glimmers. All of existence, inner and outer, is revealed to be secretly shining: a thousand colors, ten thousand facets, all reflecting a single light.==The story of St. Clare is closely linked with St. Francis of Assisi. Clare was twelve years younger than Francis and, like him, was raised in Assisi in a wealthy family.Clare founded a women's community at San Damiano embodying the Franciscan ideal of radical poverty. Other women soon joined, including Clare's sister and, eventually, Clare's own mother.Francis often turned to Clare for advice and inspiration. When Francis was torn between a life of prayer and one of preaching, it was Clare who advised him to speak, saying, "God did not call you for yourself alone." The Canticle of Brother Sun, Francis's masterpiece

of poetry, was composed while he was encamped outside of Clare's convent of San Damiano. When Francis was afflicted with the stigmata, Clare made him slippers to protect his bleeding feet.Clare lived twenty-seven years beyond the death of Francis. During most of those remaining years she was apparently ill with a mysterious sickness that kept her bedridden, though she remained a strong-minded and determined woman throughout that period.Despite her position as abbess, she was true to the humble Franciscan ideal by serving the sick, waiting table, and washing the feet of the begging nuns. She came from prayer, it was said, with her face so shining it dazzled those about her. In spite of her ongoing struggles with Church authorities -- or perhaps because of them -- popes, cardinals and bishops often came to consult her.Clare was declared a saint sixty years after her death.IvanPS - Thank you for the emails

wishing my wife well. Her surgery yesterday went well, and she is recovering. She now has a small metal plate in her wrist to make sure the bones reform and heal properly. She now claims that she is the bionic woman... but I already knew she had super powers!

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Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are 2002 - 2008 by Ivan M. Granger.All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or publishers.

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