St Clare: An extremely brave bride of Christ, and not a hippie-Barbie-on-speed!

 Happy Feast of St. Clare! St. Clare certainly had fervour-in-faith when she stood up to the army that attacked Assisi and surrounded her convent! Taking the Blessed Sacrament, she went to the walls of her convent and facing the army she prayed to God, “Does it please you, oh Lord, to deliver into the hands of these beasts the defenceless children that I have nourished with Your love?” The army were seized with terror and fled.

The same St. Clare depicted above doesn’t quite match the flower-child, winsome and willowy girl in this Brother Sun Sister Moon clip. We must be mindful that an entire generation of 1970’s Catholics’ experience of St. Clare was probably informed by watching Brother Sun Sister Moon. The young Clare looks delusional and madly enamoured (even infatuated) with St. Francis, as opposed to Our Lord. Clare is illustrated as more hippie-Barbie-on-speed than Bride of Christ. I’ve come to agree with my parents, “on reflection…that film made St. Clare look like she was flouncing about in a groovy wonderland. And did it date!”