She was rich and beautiful

and all the men wanted her. They approached her with their charming smiles and boastful dreams.

They bored her.

Instead, she was fascinated with the village idiot.

To be sure, where she lived was much larger than a village and he was technically not an idiot. He had been a fine young man from a good family, but his life had gone off track. He was virtually homeless and went about town talking loudly.

Strangely enough, other young men of the town had joined him. He said they were embracing the simplicity and the poverty of Christ.

She knew what that meant.

She and other young women needed to embrace the simplicity and poverty of Christ.

Around the age of eighteen, she withdrew from the world. Her father threatened to drag her back home, but he was soon realized that it was pointless.

St. Clare of Assisi, friend of St. Francis, led the community she founded for four decades until she died of natural causes on this very day in the year 1253.Tens of thousands of Poor Clare nuns continue to follow her example of prayer and devotion to Christ, from Kiryushi, Japan, to Birmingham, Alabama (the convent of Mother Angelica, founder of EWTN).

(adapted from earlier posts)