{"id":20059,"date":"2021-04-13T10:22:44","date_gmt":"2021-04-13T14:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=20059"},"modified":"2021-04-13T10:24:34","modified_gmt":"2021-04-13T14:24:34","slug":"the-gift-of-wise-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=20059","title":{"rendered":"The Gift of Wise Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6glQdaQUZ1U\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>As a Franciscan, I have always been curious about the fruitful friendship between Francis of Assisi and his female companion Clare. They were not lovers, yet they were deeply devoted to one another, built their orders together, and turned to one another for support and wisdom. My friend Mirabai Starr offers a vignette based on tales about Francis and Clare, and shows a mutual friendship built on their shared dedication to Christ:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Clare gave up everything to be with Francis, to live as he lived, to see the face of the Divine in the faces of the poor and the oppressed and to love them as he loved them. \u201cHer goal in life,\u201d says Robert Ellsberg about Saint Clare, \u201cwas not to be a reflection of Francis but to be, like him, a reflection of Christ.\u201d [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While Francis guided his growing order of Little Brothers, he assigned Clare as the leader of the Poor Ladies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Francis felt most alone in the world, most persecuted and misunderstood, it was Clare he would turn to for clarity, wisdom, and a love stripped of sentimentality. \u201cAll I want is to live as a hermit and love my Lord in secret,\u201d he confessed to her. \u201cAnd yet I am moved to preach the gospel of holy poverty in the world. What should I do?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Clare did not equivocate: \u201cGod did not call you for yourself alone, but also for the salvation of others.\u201d [2]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Toward the end of his life, when the brotherhood had burgeoned so quickly that it threatened to implode, Francis\u2019s physical health mirrored the disease spreading through his community. Wracked by unrelenting pain in his joints and flesh, and nearly blind, the forty-four-year-old ascetic took refuge in a hermitage adjoining the convent of the Poor Clares at San Damiano [where Clare lived and died].<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There, near to the woman who knew his soul and loved him with a perfect love, and enfolded in the sacred sounds and smells of the creation, Francis composed his ecstatic hymn, \u201cThe Canticle of The Sun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Francis could no longer hide the gravity of his condition, the brothers took him home to die. Clare immediately became seriously ill, sharing the suffering of her beloved in her own body. When Francis heard that Clare was sick with grief, he sent her a message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI promise,\u201d he wrote, \u201cyou will see me again before you die.\u201d&nbsp;<em>[He accepted and enjoyed how much she loved him! \u2014Richard Rohr]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A few days later, the brothers carried Francis\u2019s lifeless body to the cloistered convent of San Damiano and stopped beneath Clare\u2019s window. They lifted him high so that Clare could almost reach out and touch his hair. The friars stood there for as long as Clare wished, while she filled her eyes with him and wailed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Clare lived for another twenty-seven years without her \u201cpillar of strength and consolation,\u201d yet content in the arms of their common mother, \u201cOur Lady, Most Holy Poverty.\u201d She became a great and beloved spiritual leader, whose primary teaching was her life of radical simplicity and quiet joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"338\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/image-3-500x338.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-20060\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/image-3-500x338.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/image-3-300x203.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/image-3-768x520.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/image-3.png 1918w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a Franciscan, I have always been curious about the fruitful friendship between Francis of Assisi and his female companion Clare. They were not lovers, yet they were deeply devoted to one another, built their orders together, and turned to one another for support and wisdom. My friend Mirabai Starr offers a vignette based on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20059"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20059"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20062,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20059\/revisions\/20062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}