Saintliness ran in the family

By Tony Staley

	St. Agnes of Assisi When: ca. 1197-Nov. 19, 1253 Where: Assisi and Florence, Italy What: Nun Feast: Nov. 19

Certain traits can be so common between siblings and their parents that we say "it runs in the family." Religious life ran in the family of St. Clare of Assisi.

Clare's 13th century Italian family gave us not only Clare, founder of the contemplative order that bears her name, but also her sister, St. Agnes of Assisi and their mother, Blessed Hortulana, whose cousin, Rufino, was one of St. Francis of Assisi's Three Companions.

On Palm Sunday, 1212, Clare fled her parents' home to meet the traveling friar, Francis of Assisi, and consecrate herself to God. Her father, Count Favorino Scifi, failed to convince Clare to return home from the Benedictine convent of St. Angelo in Panso where Francis placed her.

Sixteen days later, the 15-year-old Agnes, who was born Caterina Offreduccio, decided to join her older sister in a life of poverty and penance. That further enraged their father. He sent his brother, Monaldo, several relatives and armed men to bring her home. When persuasion failed, Monaldo reached for his sword to strike Caterina, but his arm became withered and useless and fell to his side. The others grabbed Caterina by the hair, hitting and kicking her as they pulled her from the monastery.

Clare began praying. Suddenly, Caterina became so heavy that the soldiers couldn't carry her. They dropped the half-dead young woman in a field and fled.

Francis was so impressed by Caterina's resistance to her family's pleas and threats that he cut off her hair, gave her their simple habit - gray sackcloth - and renamed her Agnes.

It didn't take long for the Benedictines to decide they didn't need such notorious guests, or for Clare and Agnes to want a more austere life. So Francis took them to the little house by San Damiano Church, which he had rebuilt. The Poor Ladies of St. Damian, now known as the Poor Clares, were founded.

Despite their simple quarters, several other women joined them, including Clare and Agnes' mother - after the death of their father - and their sister, Beatrice.

In 1219, Francis asked Agnes to found and serve as abbess of a Poor Clares' community at Monticelli, near Florence. Agnes obeyed, but in a letter she wrote about how hard it was for her to live apart from Clare and the other sisters. Eventually, the Monticelli monastery became almost as well known as St. Damian.

From the start, Agnes was regarded as highly virtuous and a kind abbess, who made religious life bright and attractive to the other nuns. She started several other monasteries in northern Italy, including at Mantua, Venice and Padua.

In 1253, Agnes was asked to return to St. Damian where Clare lay dying. Three months after Clare's death, Agnes also died. Today, the remains of Clare, Agnes, their mother and sister, are in St. Clare Church at Assisi.

(Staley is a former editor of The Compass and a member of Resurrection Parish in Allouez.)