St. Clare of the Cross of Montefalco

St. Clare of the Cross of Montefalco was born around 1268 at Montefalco in Umbria, Italy, and died there on 17 August 1308. From childhood she joined her elder sister in a life of prayer and penance, and the small community they formed eventually adopted the Rule of St. Augustine; Clare became abbess of the convent of the Holy Cross, guiding her sisters with wisdom, austerity, and profound union with the crucified Christ, whose Passion she carried always in her heart.

According to a tradition long cherished at Montefalco, after her death her sisters found within her heart small formations resembling the instruments of Christ's Passion — the cross, the scourge, the crown of thorns — and in her body three gallstones of equal size and weight, understood as a sign of the Holy Trinity to which she had been so devoted. A mystic of deep prayer and sound doctrine, she was canonized by Pope Leo XIII in 1881.