From: rich <richarra@gmail.com>

April 17th - Blessed Clare Gambacorta, OP
(also known as Thora or Theodora of Pisa)

Born in Venice(?), Italy, in 1362; died 1419; beatified by Pope Pius
VIII in 1830. Clare, baptized Victoria, was the only daughter of the pre-eminent family of Pisa, which was in political exile at the time
of her birth. When Victoria was seven, the family returned
triumphantly to Pisa, and her father, Peter Gambacorta, was installed
as chief magistrate of the city, a position full of both glory and
uncertainty.

Victoria, a pretty and pious child, used to gather the children
together to recite the Rosary. She was both devout and penitential;
therefore, she did not relish the marriage her father had arranged for
her. Nevertheless, as a dutiful daughter she married and became a
dutiful, loving wife. When her young husband died of the plague just 3
years after their marriage, Victoria was grief-stricken. She did truly
love him. But now that she was free, she determined that no one was
going to urge her to marry again.

In the first year of her marriage, when she was 13, Victoria had met
the famous and saintly Catherine of Siena, who had come to Pisa to
talk to Victoria's father about the league of cities. The saint had
advised the lovely young bride to give her heart to God and her
husband.

Now that he was dead, Catherine wrote to the 15-year-old widow saying:
"Strip yourself of self. Love God with a free and loyal love."
Victoria knew that another marriage was being arranged for her, and
before the contract could be concluded she fled to the Poor Clares and
took the habit and the religious name Sister Clare.

Her brothers forcibly took her home. They locked her up in a dark
little room in her own home. For five months she could neither talk to
her friends nor receive the sacraments, but she retained the name
Clare, and she wore the Franciscan habit. The pretty, young prisoner
was a daughter of her times, and she managed to get errands done by
her friends. One by one, her jewels were sent out and sold, and the
money was given to the poor. It was the only active charity she could
manage from a prison cell. Finally, on Saint Dominic's day, when her
father and brothers were away, her mother got her out and took her to
Mass. It was the first time in months that she had been able to
receive Communion.

Shortly thereafter, a Spanish bishop came to visit the family, and
Clare's father asked him to try to talk some sense into the girl. He
apparently did not know that the Spaniard had been confessor to Saint
Bridget of Sweden, and that he was highly in sympathy with women who
wished to dedicate themselves to God. In the end, Clare's family
relented and allowed her to make plans to enter a convent. Her contact
with Saint Catherine had convinced her that she could be nothing but a Dominican, so she took refuge with the local community until she could
build a convent of her own.

Due to the ravages of plague and schism, many convents, including that
of the Dominicans of Pisa, were weak in observance and did not live
the common life. Clare wanted a strictly religious form of life, and,
within four years, with the help of her stepmother, the new convent
was built for her and Blessed Mary Mancini. It was first blessed in
1385, and a strict canonical cloister was imposed upon it, forbidding
any man but the bishop and the master general from entering.

Eight years later, this strict enclosure was to cost Sister Clare a
terrible loss. Her father was betrayed by a man who had always been
his friend, and the volatile public turned against him and killed him
in the street outside her convent. One of her brothers also fell in
the fight, and a second, wounded, begged to be let into the convent.
Clare had to tell him, through the window, that she could not open the
door to him. While she watched in horror, he was dragged away and
killed.

Some time after this, Sister Clare fell seriously ill and was thought
to be dying. She made a curious request: some food from the table of
the man who had betrayed and killed her father and brothers. The wife
of the guilty man sent a basket of bread and fruit; Sister Clare ate
the bread and was cured. Shortly afterwards the man who had seized the
power unjustly was killed himself, and she offered sanctuary to his
widow and daughters.

Clare's brother, Peter, who had fled from the court to become a hermit
about the time she went to the Poor Clares, converted a band of
highwaymen and began a community of hermits. When his father and
brothers were murdered, he wished to go back to secular life and seek
revenge, and Clare talked him out of it.

Clare Gambacorta died after a holy life. Many prodigies were reported
at her tomb, and there is an interesting little legend to the effect
that every time a sister in her house is about to die, the bones of
Blessed Clare rattle in her coffin. This gives the sister warning
(Attwater2, Benedictines, Dorcy, Encyclopedia).


Saint Quote:
Everyone--past, present, and future--will be judged. Now, then, is the
time for mercy, while the time to come will be the time for justice
only. For that reason, the present time is ours, but the future time
will be God's only!
--St. Thomas Aquinas

Bible Quote:
I charge thee, before God and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living
and the dead, by his coming, and his kingdom: 2 Preach the word: be
instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all
patience and doctrine. 3 For there shall be a time, when they will not
endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will
heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: 4 And will indeed
turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto
fables. 5 But be thou vigilant, labour in all things, do the work of
an evangelist, fulfill thy ministry. Be sober.=C2 (2 Tim. 4:1-5)


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Prayer To Saint Joseph

O Blessed Joseph,
you gave your last breath
in the loving embrace of Jesus and Mary.
When the seal of death shall close my life,
come with Jesus and Mary to aid me.
Obtain for me this solace for that hour,
to die with their holy arms around me.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
I commend my soul,
living and dying,
into your sacred arms. Amen.

--- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2
* Origin: News Gate @ Net396 -Huntsville, AL - USA (1:396/4)