Word: assisi
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...idea was supplied by the Rev. Henry W. Berkemeier, pastor of the township's St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church. Most of the residents had insurance or could get loans to cover the cost of building materials, the priest reasoned, but would the citizens of Flint volunteer a weekend of their labor to do the rebuilding? The people of Flint responded with a spirit that seemed to match the force of the tornado...
...Back Door, at Night. In 1212, when Clare was about 18, a strange and pious youth named Francis, the son of Assisi's rich cloth merchant, came to preach a Lenten course of sermons in the church of San Giorgio. In young Francis, who had dedicated himself to God and poverty, Clare knew at once that she had found the inspiration of her life. She appealed to him to help her leave the worldly world, as he had done. Together the two future saints concocted a holy plot. On Palm Sunday she appeared in church with her mother...
...almost 60, subsisting most of the time on an ounce and a half of bread a day, serving her sisters at table and nursing them in sickness, praying late into the night and rising early to ring the bell for Mass. Twice she is said to have saved Assisi from invading armies. In 1234, when the Saracen soldiers of Frederick II scaled the walls of San Damiano by night, Clare confronted them in an open window holding the Sacrament. The soldiers fled. Later a larger force returned and Clare led her sisters in prayer. Suddenly a huge storm arose that...
Last week Assisi celebrated the 700th anniversary of St. Clare's death. Pilgrims and dignitaries from all over the world poured into the little Umbrian town for two days of special services and speeches. In the triumphant procession that climaxed the celebration, behind long lines of tonsured friars and bundled nuns, five relics of the saint were borne; a ball of yarn she had spun, a chip of her bones, a skein of hair cut off by St. Francis, her brown mantle, and the rough tunic she wore...
...none of this was seen by the Poor Clares. Like their 12,000-odd sisters throughout the world, the 47 Poor Clares of Assisi spent these days in their cloister with no sight of the world but the sky above them, praying, working, singing and fasting, to be worthy of being what their founder liked to call herself: Brother Francis' Little Plant...