Lived Theology with Kimberlee Conway Ireton
Recently The Everyday Journal interviewed Kimberlee Conway Ireton on liturgy, family, and the church calendar.
EJ: As a woman and
mother how do you think of your personal theology and practice? Is
it more down to earth and practical? Does academics only go so far?
KCI: I must confess
that I actually like academics. I have a spirituality of the library,
you might say. I meet God most often in books and words and ideas.
This gets tricky when you’ve got little kids asking questions about
death (our beloved cat died last summer) and Heaven. How to take
those beautiful academic ideas and translate them for a
four-year-old?
So yes, academics only goes
so far when you’re interacting with children. While my bookish
tendencies remain strong, I have begun to encounter God far more
through the natural world (especially bugs!) and embodied reality
than I ever did before I had children. It’s opened my eyes to a
whole new way of being in God’s presence. You might say it’s
opening me to a more incarnational spirituality-which my
word-oriented self loves, given all the brilliant prose and poetry
that’s been written about God’s incarnation in Christ.
Read the rest of Kimberlee’s interview in The Everyday Journal]
——–
The Everyday Journal’s Spring 2009 issue takes a look at the many approaches to the theme "Women in Theology." You can read the issue online or view a digital copy.
The Everyday Journal Spring 2009 is here!
"Women in theology." What comes to mind when you hear those words? The Spring issue of the Everyday Journal
is a collection that hits the many questions surrounding those words.
With memoir, articles, essays, poetry, and perspectives, the response
is as multifaceted as the very issue. Women are alive and active in
theological realms, and they find their own way to navigate those
waters.
The book reviews are a great example of just how open "women in
theology" has become: two scholars writing about ritual theory and the
Eucharist, a long-time religion expert writing about the future of
Christianity, and a mom and writer thinking about meeting God everyday
with the church calendar.
Table of Contents:
Interview
Lived
Theology
An
Interview: with Kimberlee Conway Ireton
Perspectives
Beckie
Garrison
Our
Differences and Our Theology
Kris
Anne Swartley
Memoir
Elizabeth
D. Sands Wise
Poetry
Rev.
Dorcas George
Essay
Clare:
The Femine Expression of Franciscan Spirituality
Elisa
Benson
Book
Reviews
The
Circle of the Seasons by Kimberlee Conway Ireton
The
Great Emergence by Phyllis Tickle
The
Eucharist by Andrea Bieler & Luise Schottroff
The Everyday Journal 2008 Now In Print!
With the arrival of the Spring issue of The Everyday Journal I am excited to announce that the Everyday Journal 2008 is now for sale in print and download versions.
This includes all four issues of The Everyday Journal from 2008, including interviews with Brian McLaren, Paul Soupiset, and Troy Bronsink plus fascinating articles about the farmers market and the lectionary, Mother Maria and the New Monasticism, and liturgy in the local community.
You can purchase your copy today by clicking the button and proceeding to the publisher.
All profits from the sales of The Everyday Journal will go to Touch the World Uganda.
Details:
1 documents, 662 KB
Printed: 233 pages, 6" x 9", perfect binding, cream
interior paper (60# weight), black and white interior ink, white
exterior paper (100# weight), full-color exterior ink
Book Review: The Eucharist
Intersecting strands of
feminist, post-colonial, and post-modern theory together with ritual
theory and a practical theology of the Eucharist, Bieler and
Schottroff have produced a stunning work that disperses the wonder
and power of the Eucharist as crumbs to the hillsides of life.
The extent to which Bieler and
Schottroff pull the Eucharist into the quiet places of Christian
theology creates a feeling of blowing the dust off an old book and
reading from it once more. Theses ideas are not new, Bieler and
Schottroff seem to unconsciously reminding us, they were just left by
the wayside.
To
the extent to which this is a vary scholarly book, a
textbook even, precludes me from attempting to way in on the
scholastic side of things; reading this book has deeply practical
reasons, if not to just remember what the whole reality of the
Eucharist is in the first place.
The
Eucharist is, we often forget, is a meal that finds Heaven and Earth
intersecting. The bodies of the earth, which need both physical and
spiritual bread, are intersecting with the heavenly dream of the
coming resurrection. When we decide not to bring our realities,
realities of war, hunger, over-abundance, economies, memory, hatred,
love, pain, and suffering, to the table, we are diminishing the
presence of Christ, a presence which we honor, serve, love, and hope
will come again to resurrect this world and bring a coming kingdom.
This
book reminds us that in the practice of a 2,000 year old ritual ideas
becoming increasingly complex, and indeed cannot be separated from
the tension created in a world that is in darkness and the
eschatological hope of a kingdom that will come in glory and light.
—-
The Eucharist: Bodies, Bread, and Resurrection
Andrea Butler & Luise Schottroff
Fortress Press
Book Review: The Great Emergence
Tickle’s
The Great Emergence is a captivating look at how the Western
church is shifting and the possibilities of change and division that
are bubbling on the surface of turbulent times within various
denominations, movements, and traditions.
Tickle’s thesis is that the
"great " church changes profoundly every 500 years, the first
change happening with Pope Gregory the Great in the 500-600 AD time
frame, the Great Schism happening around 1000 AD, the Reformation
happening around 1500 AD, and the Great Emergence, a current and
coming time when the fragmentation of Western Christianity will
implode back onto itself and become an "emerging, a-borning center
which will be the next to hold pride of place in Church history"
(141).
Tickle
presents her thesis in a fast flying flurry of ideas and concepts
that make sense in their premise, but with the pace moving so quickly
not many of the ideas are fleshed out. The main criticism with the
book I have is that there is not enough time spent on the broad
historical and theological theories Tickle presents in the first two
parts of the book. With such a broad palatte the book has the
feeling of The DaVinci Code with names, dates, ideas, and
historical vignettes flying about. In a criticism not often given to
books coming out of the Christian publishing industry, I simply
believe that the book should have been much longer in the first two
parts to allow Tickle to flesh out her foundational thesis in much
more detail.
The
value of the book is when Tickle dons the hat of the futurist and
presents her understanding of the changes coming to Christianity
within the next several decades. Whereas Yeats famously wrote in his
poem, "The Second Coming": "Turning and turning in the widening
gyre/The falcon cannot hear the falconer;/Things fall apart; the
centre cannot hold," Tickle herself believes that the center will
hold, and the widening gyre of denominations, traditions, and
movements will begin to collapse back upon herself. Things will fall
apart, but it will be on the margins, not within the center.
The
center of the Great Emergence is along the lines of what John Wimber
termed "center-set movement," a re-orientation of practical
theology that sees the spiritual journey of a person toward Christ
not in the traditional mode of "believe-behave-belong" but
instead now as "belong-behave-believe."
As
the author notes, the significant thing here is that the Great
Emergence is shaping a theology that will be the theology, in part,
of society’s reconfigured understanding of the self, the soul, the
humanness of being in imago dei. It will impact everything
from medical policy to moral theory as well as evangelism and
religious formation.
Whether
we are truly on that path remains to be seen, but Tickle nonetheless
makes a convincing argument that the future may be one of great
emergence.
——
The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why
Phyllis Tickle
BakerBooks
Clare: A Feminine Expression of Franciscan Spirituality
by Elisa Benson
She was the first
tender sprout
among these
and gave forth
fragrance
like a bright
white flower
that blossoms in
the springtime,
and
she shone like a radiant star.1
Clare
of Assisi was a woman who lived on the brink of a new era when
women’s voices began to be heard in Christian society. Though their
views were formerly and frequently suppressed, women in the Middle
Ages were making gains in literacy and socioeconomic opportunity. The
dominant secular and religious views of women remained mistrustful,
however. Because femininity was still seen as dangerous, Clare can be
described as a "light shining through a veil,"2
her voice echoing through history with a theology deeply endowed by
Francis of Assisi but that flowered as uniquely her own. Because
Clare’s voice was listened to, recorded in historical texts, and
she was skilled in writing, we are left with a real picture of the
feminine face of monasticism. This essay aims to articulate what
makes Clare’s theology distinctively feminine, both in contrast and
comparison to Francis and her time period.
Clare’s Youth
The
most influential female figure in Clare’s life was her mother.
Ortolana was a woman of noble birth given in marriage to Favarone -
a man born of "one of the most important families of Assisi."3
Historical descriptions of Ortolana suggest that she was a woman of
faith and adventure. With female companions at her side, she joined
the pilgrimages to the Holy Land and was well traveled in other
respects.4
Ortolana chose the name of Clare for her daughter after having a
religious experience. The
Legend of Saint Clare
describes it in the following way:
"While the
pregnant woman, already near delivery, was attentively praying to the
Crucified before the cross in a church to bring her safely through
the danger of childbirth, she
heard a voice saying to her:
"Do not be afraid, woman, for you will give birth in safety to a
light which will give light more clearly than light itself." Taught
by this oracle…she ordered that she be called Clare."5
Later
in life, after being widowed, Ortolana chose to join Clare at San
Damiano rather than receive the comfortable care offered by
aristocratic relatives. Historical evidence supports the influence of
Ortolana simply through its manifold references to her. This stands
in contrast to Clare’s father, who remains quite silent in the
literature. Clare’s character, confidence, and ardent abandonment
to Christ likely have roots in her mother’s example.
Another
shaping factor in Clare’s life was the growing division between the
maiores
and minores
- the aristocracy and the working class in Assisi.6
The aristocracy was significantly less in number and when the protest
of the minores
over injustices eventually erupted into civil war the maiores
were driven into
Perugia, a city west of Assisi. Interestingly, the women of the
minores
had more freedom than the women of the aristocracy. Marco Bartoli, in
his biography of Clare, wrote of this freedom:
Other women, less
rich and perhaps less noble than they, lived much freer lives, filled
with responsibilities. These women collaborated with their husbands
in tending the shop; they conducted their own small businesses and
took their part in the economic and social growth of their city.7
Contextually,
Clare lived in a period of political instability and growing literary
and socioeconomic opportunities for women. Though real opportunities
were still far from being actualized on a broad scale for women,
Clare was likely emboldened by these glimpses of what would be to
come.
Clare
became aware of St. Francis around the age of 12 or 13 when Francis’
conversion and commitment to poverty was publicly expressed in a
piazza near her home. Francis stripped himself "of everything in
front of the bishop of Assisi" and returned his clothes to his
father as an act of renunciation of his inheritance.8
According to The
Legend, Clare
listened to Francis preach throughout her teenage years. Scholars
debate whether Francis first approached Clare, hearing of her
holiness, or whether Clare first sought out Francis.9
What is certain is that Francis played the most central role in
Clare’s conversion.10
Clare
fled her family one night to St. Mary of the Portiuncula, the
monastery that Francis and the brothers had rebuilt. One account of
the flight states: "The brethren were waiting for her with lighted
torches to show the way…at the hands of the brothers, Clare’s
hair was cut off and she left behind her the adornments of the
world."11
Clare’s conversion didn’t take place without her family’s
strong resistance, but Clare’s commitment was unmovable – and
when she bared her tonsured head, she was viewed as unmarriageable
and left alone. In this act of rebellion, Clare exchanged her earthly
father’s will for the will of her heavenly Father.
Enclosure
Clare
carried out this will by choosing to live in the example of poverty
set before her in Francis, at San Damiano.12
Clare spent nearly her entire monastic life at San Damiano as
enclosure was assumed for women who desired to enter the religious
life. Enclosure had strong associations with the virtue of virginity
that is upheld throughout Christian history, and this form of life
reveals how the emphasis on this virtue fell to women.13
It is suggested that this is in line with a religious mistrust of
women:14
"The female sex, precisely because it was weaker, was seen as the
more easily drawn into sin, hence the need for enclosure and the
exaltation of the choice of virginity."15
In Clare’s rule, enclosure was a necessity.16
Clare’s words, however, when taken out of context, appear to
suggest that she was solely responsible for the strictness of
enclosure. She was rather bound by obedience to the Rule given to the
Poor Ladies in 1219 by Cardinal Ugolino, who, with tradition behind
him, suggested extreme restriction on the enclosure of the Poor
Ladies.17
In
her own writings on enclosure, Clare never expressly links enclosure
to virginity. Virginity was linked to the body and being of each
sister and to poverty where they, like Mary, made themselves empty
and available to house the Lord Jesus Christ.18
It is important to note that before Francis’ death, there was a
sense of openness to San Damiano as the brothers would frequently
visit. After Francis’ death, the Pope ruled that no more brothers
visit the Poor Ladies. Clare vocally and physically protested along
with her sisters with a hunger strike. The purpose of San Damiano,
for Clare, was to be an open community that expressed the love,
friendship, and interdependence of sister and brother; relationships
that exemplified her relationship with Francis and that upheld
Francis’ Rule for the sisters.19
This interdependence had, however, strict and modest rules of
operation.20
Clare was successful in her protest and the Pope consented to the
open relationship between the Franciscan sisters and brothers.
Clare’s
embrace of enclosure could yield a different interpretation to the
masculine view of tying enclosure to virginity. Enclosure was a
withdrawal from the world and provided the women a kind of protection
in a time of political instability and insecurity. Because these
women took vows of poverty and San Damiano was located on the edge of
the city, they were highly vulnerable. Enclosure could also have been
an expression, albeit an extreme one, of the feminine virtue of
modesty. Therefore, enclosure in Clare’s eyes may have been less
about a shameful hiding of the feminine form and more about
protection and discretion.
Clare’s Theology
Poverty-Clare
was passionate about following the pattern of life given to her by
Francis – the heartbeat of which was holy poverty. Francis
endeavored to cling to the footprints of the emptied-out Christ and
saw poverty as integrally tied to the Incarnation.21
He included Mary as an example of this poverty, for Mary is the
source of Christ’s humanity: "Though He was rich beyond all other
things, in this world He, together with the most blessed Virgin, His
mother, willed to choose poverty…"22
Francis also called poverty, "Lady Poverty," and describes his
relationship to her as one of falling in love.23
It
was Clare’s lifelong resolve to uphold Francis’ uncompromising
commitment to poverty. Because the Poor Sisters lived enclosed their
poverty was expressed by their dependence upon God to provide for
them, rather than the Pope. Clare’s love of poverty is expressed in
her first letter to Agnes of Prague. She writes a Trinitarian praise:
O
blessed poverty, who bestows eternal riches on those who love and
embrace her!
O
holy poverty, to those who possess and desire you God promises the
kingdom of heaven and
offers,
indeed, eternal glory and blessed life!
O
God-centered poverty, whom the Lord Jesus Christ Who ruled and now
rules heaven and earth,
Who
spoke and things were made, condescended to embrace before all else!24
Just
after this Clare writes, "You know, I am sure, that the kingdom of
heaven is promised and given by the Lord only to the poor…"25
The defense of living in poverty became Clare’s chief struggle, a
struggle in which she overcame many obstacles. She obtained "The
Privilege of Poverty" from Pope Innocent III’s own hand, after
the Fourth Lateran Council had decided no longer to award any new
Rules. In this Privilege he states, "We confirm with our apostolic
authority, as you requested, your proposal of most high poverty,
granting you by the authority of this letter that no one can compel
you to receive possessions."26
Later, in 1253, Clare obtained her own Rule. The respect of the Pope
for the Lady Clare speaks volumes of her importance. It reveals
Clare’s zeal of devotion and strength of character.
The
way in which this poverty was expressed for Clare was in extreme
fasting and self-denial. Sister Pacifica de Guelfuccio of Assisi, one
of the sisters of San Damiano, testified to Clare’s
self-mortification:
This witness said
that the blessed mother kept vigil so much of the night in prayer,
and kept so many abstinences that the sisters lamented and were
alarmed. She said because of this she herself sometimes wept. Asked
how she knew this, she replied: because she saw when Lady Clare lay
on the ground and had a rock from the river for her head, and heard
her when she was in prayer. She said she was so very strict in her
food that the sisters marveled at how her body survived…blessed
Clare fasted much of the time. Three days of the week, Monday,
Wednesday, and Friday, she did not eat anything…on other days she
kept such abstinences she developed a certain illness so Saint
Francis together with the bishop of Assisi commanded her to eat on
those three days at least a half a roll of bread, about one and a
half ounces.27
Fasting
was a potent expression of feminine spirituality alongside masculine
spirituality in desert monasticism28
and became even more distinguishably feminine in the middle ages.29
For Clare, it was a way of enduring hardship in order to share
Christ’s sufferings and associate with the poor. The women of San
Damiano were typically barefoot unless they worked outside the
monastery30
and were more dependent than the friars because they could not even
wander and beg for alms. Fasting was also uniquely associated with
devotion to the Eucharist. While this influenced Clare’s
spirituality, her fasting appears more related to the poverty God, in
Christ, embraced in order to embrace the impoverished.31
Mariology-Although
the Poor Christ is the primary focus of Clare and Francis’
theology, Mary is remarkably central. Francis’ high estimation of
Mary is revealed in the language he chooses to describe her: Queen of
heaven, daughter and servant of the most-high King and Father of
heaven, mother of Christ, and spouse of the Holy Spirit.32
In Francis’ Office
of the Passion, an
Antiphon to the Holy Virgin was recited every hour. Francis’
Mariology affected how he viewed Clare and the Poor Ladies as well as
how Clare would come to see herself and her sisters. The language
Francis used to describe Mary is applied to these women, seen in the
form of life Francis gave to them.33
Clare’s
writing is rife with Marian imagery. In the first letter to Agnes she
writes, "Therefore, my dearest sister – or I should rather say,
Lady greatly respected, because you are the bride, the mother and the
sister of my Lord Jesus Christ."34
In the second letter she addresses Agnes as "O most noble queen,"35
and in the third letter, in which Clare’s Mariology is most
exquisitely expressed, Clare draws a direct parallel between Mary and
Agnes: "As the glorious Virgin of virgins materially, so will you,
spiritually, certainly be able always to carry him in your chaste and
virginal body, by following in her footprints, particularly the
prints of humility and poverty, containing him by whom you and
everything are contained."36
Although Mary provided an example for these holy women, Mariology is
not a unique expression of Clare’s spirituality. In this Clare is
in consistent agreement with Francis.37
That
Mariology was a dominant theological theme in the 12th
and 13th
centuries is well-known and exaggeratedly articulated in Simone de
Beauvoir’s words: "it is sure that the Church exalted the cult of
the mother of the Redeemer to such a degree that we can say that in
the thirteenth century God had been made woman."38
In spite of this, experts doubt that the high Mariology of the Middle
Ages truly benefited women. Men of this time continued to write
disparagingly of women. Thomas of Celano, who wrote such praise of
Clare in The Legend,
in the same breath, wrote:
"It
was not fitting that help be lacking for the more fragile sex,
caught
up in the maelstrom of passion
which
no less a desire drew to sin
and
no greater a frailty impelled."39
Both
Conroy and Beauvoir doubt that Mariology "reflects an increased
respect for, or positive view of, real women"40
Still, texts exchanged between Francis and Clare suggest that Francis
viewed Clare as his equal. Perhaps it was Francis’ esteem of Clare
that gave her confidence to raise her voice in protest when
compromise threatened the Franciscan order.
Mystical
Marriage and the Mirror-In
the bridal metaphor of union with Christ, Clare’s theology develops
uniquely from that of Francis.’ Francis encouraged intimacy with
Christ, but this intimacy was enacted and understood in terms of
obedience.41
Clare too exhorted obedience, but she takes her sisters much further
into the relational dimension of obedience. The uniqueness of her
theology is best seen in her letters to Agnes, where her words are
bright with animation and love.
Christ
is portrayed in Clare’s letters as the most loving and perfect
Bridegroom. This is central to Clare’s exhortation to Agnes as well
as probably to many others who left noble status and noble marriage
prospects, and faced persecution to join themselves to the Poor
Ladies.42
Clare rejoices over Agnes’ choice:
This is that
perfection which the King himself will share with you in the heavenly
bridal chamber, where he is gloriously seated on a throne of stars,
for you have scorned, as insufficient, the pinnacle of an earthly
kingdom, the offer of marriage to the Emperor, being made, in the
Spirit of great humility and most burning love, one who strives after
the most holy poverty, cleaving to the footprints of the one to whom
you have merited to be united as in marriage.
When,
for men, enclosure was the mark of virginity – for Clare it was the
paradox of mystical marriage to Christ that made the virgin:
"When
you have loved [Him], You are chaste,
When
you have touched [Him], You become more pure,
When
you have accepted [Him], You are a virgin."43
In
Christian history up to this point, a virgin was defined as one free
of the "transgression of the marriage bed"44
and suicide was justifiable if it was done to preserve one’s
virginity. Clare’s understanding of the embrace of Christ as
bringing purity, however, aligns itself with the Gospel message of
Christ who extended forgiveness to sinners.45
It
is in contemplating the Beloved, in Clare’s letters, that the soul
comes to know and obey the Lord. In her fourth letter to Agnes of
Prague, Clare writes,
…since He is the
splendour of eternal glory, the brightness of everlasting light and
an unspotted mirror. Gaze into this mirror daily, O queen, bride of
Jesus Christ, and continually reflect your face in it, so that you
may adorn your whole being…with virtues like flowers and with
garments every bit as ornate as those of the daughter and dearly
beloved bride of the Most High King. In that mirror, then, shine
blessed poverty, holy humility, and love beyond words, as, by the
grace of God, you can contemplate in the whole mirror.46
Clare
uses the metaphor of a mirror to articulate what occurs in
contemplation. She encouraged Agnes to follow the examples of other
holy women: Mary, Mary Magdalene, and also Rachel, who often
symbolically represented the contemplative life,47
which is the "one thing" and the "better part." Clare
exhorted Agnes away from "bitterness" or "clouds" that could
be overwhelming, through the exhortation of contemplation:
Place your mind in
the mirror of eternity! Place your soul in the brilliance of glory!
…And transform your entire being into the image of the Godhead
Itself through contemplation. So that you may feel what His friends
feel as they taste the hidden sweetness that God has reserved from
the beginning for those who love Him.48
In
this we also catch a glimpse of the pastoral side of Clare, where her
theology meets practically caring for a younger follower of Christ.49
Thus,
for Clare and the Poor Ladies, the spiritual life took the form of
union with the Bridegroom, the Poor Christ, and this union can only
take the form of obedience, becoming like Him in following His
example of self-emptying, poverty, humility, and love. But this
spiritual life also contains a highly mystical element, and intimacy
gained through contemplation constantly presses to the fore of
Clare’s writings, overtaking obedience.50
Conclusion
Pay
attention! What sluggishness, O sisters!
Pay
attention to how the brilliant feminine sensibility
shone
with so many virtues, was ablaze with the vigor of such strength!
She
overcame the obscenities of worldly slipperiness before her steps.51
In
this brief examination of Clare’s life and theology, we can see
what makes her distinct as the feminine counterpart to Francis.
Clare’s life of enclosure and fasting reveals the way feminine
spirituality found expression in her day and Clare’s emphasis on
intimacy with Christ defines feminine purity, rather than enclosure
alone. Further, in contrast to Francis, Clare’s understanding of
obedience is deeply rooted in gazing upon the Beloved, in the Mirror
of contemplation. Although it was common for women to remain silent,
Clare lifted her voice and defended the entire Franciscan order from
compromise. She defended her sisters from isolation. And she won. She
was listened to by the highest in the Ecclesiastical order of her
time and her voice continues to echo in the minds and hearts of
Christians to this day.
1
Regis Armstrong, Clare of Assisi: Early
Documents. (New York: Paulist Press, 1988)
274.
2
Edith A. Van den Goorbergh and Theodore H. Zweerman, Light
Shining Through a Veil: On Saint Clare’s Letters to Saint Agnes of
Prague. (Leuven: Peeters, 2000).
3
Marco Bartoli, Clare of Assisi.
(Quincy: Franciscan Press, 1993) 15.
4
Ibid.
5
Armstrong, Early Documents,
191.
6
Bartoli, 25.
7
Bartoli, 17, also see S. de Beauvoir, The
Second Sex. (New York: Vintage Books, 1952):
"When serfdom was abolished, poverty remained; husband and wife
lived on footing of equality in small rural communities and among
the workers; in free labor woman found real autonomy because she
played an economic and social part of real importance…Meanwhile
the rich woman paid with her subjection for her idleness"
(114-115).
8
Bartoli, 38.
9
Contrast testimonies given by Beatrice, Clare’s sister, and Bona
de Gelfuccio, Clare’s childhood friend, Bartoli, 39.
10
Clare’s own words regarding her encounter with Francis are as
follows: "After the most high heavenly Father saw fit in His mercy
and grace to enlighten my heart, that I should do penance according
to the example and teaching of our most blessed father Francis, a
short while after his conversion, I, together with a few sisters
whom the Lord had given me after my conversion, willingly promised
him obedience, as the Lord gave us the light of His grace through
his wonderful teaching." Ibid., 56.
11
Bartoli, 43-44.
12
San Damiano was the building that marked Francis’ ministry when
the Lord spoke to him, "Francis, go and repair my house, which, as
you see, is completely falling into ruin." Regis J. Armstrong,
Francis and Clare.
(New York: Paulist Press, 1988), 103.
13
"From the beginning,
virginity was not emphasized for men in the same way as it was for
women. It never dominated the total mode of perception of the male
religious, nor defined the parameters for the state of masculine
perfection or male sanctity as it did for women. This gender-based
difference seems to have originated in the concept that women’s
lives, in contrast to men’s, were essentially body-centered. Women
were seen as primarily carnal or bodily beings by nature, and
therefore in order to lead a spiritual life they needed to deny or
renounce the sexual and reproductive aspects of their being (i.e.,
that which specifically defined them as women) and transcend their
gender. For women, the preservation of virginity was the single most
essential prerequisite for a life of Christian perfection; and
through it they would be granted entry into heaven or the celestial
gynaeceum." Jane Tibbets Schulenburg, Forgetful
of Their Sex.
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1995), 127.
14
Bartoli, 125, see note and bibliographic support.
15
Bartoli, 126.
16
Armstrong, Francis and Clare, 223-224.
"The door is to be well secured by two different iron locks, with
bars and bolts, so that, especially at night, it may be locked with
two keys, one of which the portress is to have, the other the
Abbess. And during the day the door must not be left ungaurded on
any account, but should be firmly locked with one key…and by no
means shall it be opened to anyone who wishes to enter…The sisters
shall not allow anyone to enter the monastery before sunrise or to
remain within after sunset, unless an evident, reasonable, and
unavoidable cause demands otherwise…Whenever it is necessary for
other men to enter the monastery to do some work, the Abbess shall
carefully post a suitable person at the door who is to open it only
to those assigned for the work and to no one else. At such times all
the sisters should be extremely careful not to be seen by those who
enter."
17
Armstrong, Francis and Clare,
223; Early Documents,
89. Bartoli, 79-80.
18
Van den Goorbergh, 60-61.
19
"I resolve and promise for myself and for my brothers always to
have that same loving care and special solicitude for you as [I
have] for them." In Armstrong, Francis and
Clare, 45.
20
See Clare’s Rule in Armstrong, Francis and
Clare, 224.
21
1 Peter 2:21
22
Armstrong, Francis and Clare,
67.
23
Giovanni Parenti. Sacrum Commercium: The
Converse of Francis and His Sons with Holy Poverty.
Trs. Canon Rawnsley. (London: Jim Dent & Co. 1904).
24
Armstrong, Francis and Clare,
192.
25
Ibid., 193.
26
Armstrong, Early Documents,
84.
27
Ibid., 131.
28
Peter Brown, The Body and Society.
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 269.
29
Caroline Walker Bynum, "Fast, Feast, and Flesh: The Religious
Significance of Food to Medieval Women," Representations
11 (1985) 9-10.
30
Clare’s Rule, 2:15-16. Armstrong, Francis
and Clare, 213.
31
See Clare’s First Letter to Agnes, 19-20. Van den Goorbergh, 40.
32
Armstrong, Francis and Clare,
82, 149.
33
"Since by divine inspiration you have made yourselves daughter s
and servants of the most high King, the heavenly Father, and have
taken the Holy Spirit as your spouse, choosing to live according to
the perfection of the Holy Gospel, I resolve and promise for myself
and for my brothers always to have that same loving care and special
solicitude for you as I have for them." Ibid.,
44-45.
34
Van den Goorbergh, 39
35
Ibid., 98.
36
"Cleave to his most sweet mother who begot such a Son that the
heavens could not contain, and yet received him within the small
confines of her holy womb and held him on her young girl’s lap…See
how obvious it already is, that through the grace of God the
faithful human soul, that most worthy creation, is far greater that
the heavens…and only the faithful soul itself is his mansion and
throne, and this through love…As the glorious Virgin of virgins
materially, so will you, spiritually, certainly be able always to
carry him in your chaste and virginal body, by following in her
footprints, particularly the prints of humility and poverty,
containing him by whom you and everything are contained…" Ibid.,
142-143.
37
Francis uses feminine, or Marian, terms in speaking to the brothers
often as well. Cf. His use of motherhood in
The Rule for Hermitages. Armstrong, Francis
and Clare, 147.
38
de Beauvoir, 113.
39
Armstrong, Early Documents,
188.
40
Linda Conroy, "The Virgin Mary in the Lives and Writings of
Francis and Clare." Maria
3.1 (2002): 28. Also see Beauvoir, 113ff where she speaks, with
bitterness, of woman’s lot in the middle ages: "the truth is
that the feudal husband was guardian and tyrant…it was not
knightly love nor was it religion or poetry but quite other causes
that enabled woman to gain some ground as feudalism came to an end."
41
In his Testament, Rule, and other writings there is a repeated
emphasis on obedience. See Armstrong, Francis
and Clare, 70, 137, 155, etc. So
committed was Francis to being an imitator of his Lord that later
writers, reflecting on his life, wrote, "Francis himself became
the message he sought to teach through the living example of his
life…‘he made his whole body a tongue; more than someone who
prayed, he had become prayer.’" Conroy, 31.
42
Cf. Clare herself, Agnes of Assisi, Agnes of Bohemia, and see
Herbert Grundmann, Religious Movements in the
Middle Ages, (Notre Dame: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1995) 86: "She
was followed into the cloister by ‘the famous and noble, in
contempt of the palace’: ‘The highest pinnacle of nobility
followed her steps, lowering itself from pride of blood to holy
sanctity. Not a few worthy of marriage to dukes and kings followed
Clare’s invitation to penance, and those the mighty wished to marry
took on the garb of Clare.’ In 1268 the pope could speak of the
order of St. Clare as including the daughters of kings and other
magnates…"
43
Clare’s First Letter to Agnes. Armstrong, Early
Documents, 35.
44
Armstrong, Early Documents,
195.
45
Matt. 9:12-13.
46
Van den Goorbergh, 213.
47
Van den Goorbergh, 119.
48
Armstrong, Early Documents,
44.
49
Clare was 41 and Agnes 23, when their correspondence began. Van den
Goorbergh, 43. Another example of Clare’s pastoral nature is in
the testimony of her sister Agnes in The
Process of Canonization, "if Lady Clare
ever saw any of the sisters suffering some temptation or trial, she
called her secretly and consoled her with tears, and sometimes threw
herself at her feet." Armstrong, Early
Documents, 160.
50
Mysticism and Visions were more common to women as they were the
acceptable medium of expression of faith for women during this time.
51
Notification of death. In Armstrong, Early
Documents, 123.
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