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FORM OF LIFE OF THE POOR

SISTERS FOUNDED BY
ST. FRANCIS

• The Constitutions Actualize The Rule

• “Poor Sisters”

• Evangelical Calling

• Living in Obedience Without Ownership

and in Chastity

• Obedience and Reverence to the Pope and

the Roman Church

• Obedience to St. Francis and his successors

• Obedience to Sister Clare and her successors

CHAPTER I, 1-5
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The form of life of the Order of the Poor Sisters that
Blessed Francis established is this: to observe the holy
Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, 2by living in obedience,
without anything of one’s own, and in chastity. 3Clare,
the unworthy servant of Christ and the little plant of the
most Blessed Francis, promises obedience and reverence
to the Lord Pope Innocent and his canonically elected
successors, and to the Roman Church. 4And as the
beginning of her conversion she, together with her sisters,
promised obedience to Blessed Francis, so now she
promises his successors to observe the same obedience
inviolably, 5 and the other sisters shall always be obliged
to obey the successors of Blessed Francis and Sister Clare
and the other canonically elected Abbesses who succeed
her.

Clare loved calling herself “St. Francis’ little plant”.

First of all, she wants to make it clear that the Order of the
Poor Sisters was the direct foundation of the Seraphic
Father: “St. Francis established it.” By so doing, she does
not only intend to decline the honor of proclaiming herself
the Foundress, but to firmly set herself on what was her
own style all through her life. Through a lot of different
vicissitudes born from the very highness of the embraced
ideal, and bound to accept three different Rules in
succession, Clare heroically stood her ground of professed
Gospel life, especially regarding poverty, confronting even
the Holy See, quite challenging for Clare who was ever

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submissive, like no one else, to the Pope. She ever invoked
St. Francis’ will.
When close to her death, she finally succeeds in
bequeathing her daughters a Rule of their own, she does not
feel entitled to write a new Rule for them. Rather, she took
up the very same one Francis had written for his Lesser
Brothers with the necessary adaptations to the life of a
cloistered female community.
This offers us an important criterion for the spiritual
interpretation of the text. Each time we should want to
state precisely the contents and meaning of a sentence, we
will have to confront it to its parallel one of the First
Order’s Rule by reading it in agreement with St. Francis’
doctrine and also with St. Clare’s mind since she shows
through all her writings to have so deeply assimilated every
shade of the “Poverello’s “ideal.
“Rule and Life” was the name adopted by Francis.
“Form of Life” was called the first sketch of norms given
by the saint to the St. Damian community and that is the
one Clare kept for her Rule and was recognized by
Innocent IV in the bull of approbation. What really matters
to both Francis and Clare is “life”. Prescriptions ought
always to be at the service of life, an ideal found and
conquered by living up to it, not to envelope it in a
legislative setting to stifle its freedom of movement, but to
channel and enhance its growth.

The Constitutions actualize the Rule

St. Clare’s Rule is, even today, for all the “Poor
Sisters”, the fundamental law and the canonical basis of
their profession, as well as the irreplaceable expression of
the evangelical Franciscan-Clarean ideal. Next to the Rule,

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and under it, the Constitutions too make up their basic
code. Their objective is to help in a better authentic
observation of the Rule by offering an efficacious and up-
to-date guide to their efforts of renewal and adaptation to
other times and places. They also guarantee faithfulness to
the Rule even in diversity of climates and cultures, a
witness to the universality and unity throughout the
monasteries spread over the whole world, so that – in the
words of Gregory IX – “the oneness of life and harmony of
customs may join and bring together the bond of charity the
sisters kept by distances of places”.1
Where the letter of the Rule has ceased being actual,
the Constitutions translate into a new one legally approved
the spirit that remains permanently valid. So, then all the
elements of the Rule should be understood according to the
mind of St. Francis and St. Clare, as interpreted by the
Church and exposed and declared by the same
Constitutions.
This is how the relationship between the Constitutions
and the Rule appears in today’s legislation as approved by
the Holy See (Gen. Const. Art 13-16; CC Chap. 5, 221,
226). Bringing the Rule up-to-date does not only mean
substituting whatever may have become outdated in it, but
also fitting up its contents and enriching it with the Order’s
secular experience and the directives of the Church
regarding consecrated life and the contemplative vocation.
No wonder then, that many items may be found in the Rule
unforeseen by St. Clare.

“The Poor Sisters”

Francis had given the St. Damian’s group the name

of “Poor Ladies”, inspired by his knightly spirit and the

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faith with which he referred to them as “the daughters and
servants of the Most High King, the heavenly Father, who
has taken the Holy Spirit as your Spouse” (Form of Life).
He used to greet them as “my ladies”. But it seemed more
natural to Clare applying to her community the idea of
“fraternity”, so basic to the Franciscan ideal; so she adopts
the name “Poor Sisters”. Poverty and fraternity are actually
in her writings, the two inseparable elements of the one and
same calling: “to keep the Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ”.
The Saint does not use either in her Rule nor in her
Testament the term “nuns” – moniales – which was the
usual one then. Francis had rejected too the term “monks”,
substituting it with “Brothers”.
After the Foundress’ death, the name “Clares” spread
out steadily and, by the time of St. Bonaventure, they were
currently called ‘Sisters of St. Clare’ Ever since Urban’s
IV Rule, the official denomination became “Order of St.
Clare”.
St. Francis had avoided the name of “Poor Minors” for
his newly born Order, as he feared that such a name could
give room to an unwanted affinity with the “Lyon’s Poor”
and other pauper-like movements, making poverty the
standard for social defiance. He rather opted for the term
“Minor Brothers”. Nevertheless, he had no problem about
Clare and her sisters being called “Poor Ladies” or “Poor
Sisters” although he was seemingly opposed to calling
them “Minor Sisters”, wary perhaps of arising confusion
among the people.2 The Rule of Urban IV called “Sorores
inclusae” – Reclused Sisters – all the Damianites. The
reformer St. Colette, returning to St. Clare’s Rule, used the
original name “Poor Sisters”. At the reform of the
Capuchinesses, the adjective “poor” was often preceded,
and it is common today to give St. Clare’s followers, in the
English speaking countries, the name “Poor Clares”.

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 St. Clare avoids on purpose the term “nuns” common
to the female communities at that time. She has no
objection however, to using the term “monastery” for lack
of a more fitting one, when referring to the dwelling where
her contemplative community lives, even if the St. Damian
abode does not look at all like a Benedictine abbey. The
canon law includes all the cloistered sisters under the
common denominator of “nuns”. This is the reason why it
has been kept at the title of the Capuchin Constitutions
approved by the Holy See.
In 1215, the Saint saw herself being forced to accept
the title “Abbess” after St. Benedict’s Rule with the
corresponding title of “Madonna”, which we know the
outsiders gave her. By the juridical character of the
document, she had to keep that title. In her Testament
however, she avoided it intentionally and, in reference to
herself, she insisted on calling herself the “unworthy
servant of Christ and the Poor Sisters”.
In today’s renewal atmosphere, many communities
want to return, even by name , to the Holy Mother’s spirit
and adopt that which conveys the Franciscan trait of
simplicity and humility. Obviously, the key of the matter is
not using one or another term but it is essential that each
and every Poor Clare group be a true evangelical
community, where poverty is joyfully lived out and charity
is the supreme law.

Evangelical Calling

Francis wrote in his Testament: “The Most High

Himself revealed to me that I should live according to the
pattern of the Holy Gospel”. Truly, the Gospel points out
the guideline of every Christian. It is also true that “the

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ultimate religious norm is that of following Christ
according to the teaching of the Gospel.3
But to Francis and Clare, the Gospel is not only a norm
of preferential option to illumine our moral or ethical
choices. It is, in fact, a concrete, immediate programme
committing us “to follow the teachings and footprints of
our Lord Jesus Christ4 and finds its highest expression in
the passage of the apostle’s mission (Lc10, 1-10). This is
the page that definitely shone on Francis’ calling and cause
him to feel as Founder.
The Rule opens up with this statement: “The form of
life of the Poor Sisters’ Order is this: to keep the Holy
Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” and closes down with this
one: “so that we may observe the Holy Gospel that we
have firmly promised”. Then, whoever professes St.
Clare’s Rule must feel obliged more than anybody else to
ever confront her criteria, feelings and deeds with the very
life and teachings of Jesus.
Today’s Constitutions, when defining the Order’s spirit
and mission, faithful to the Rule, state that the specific
nature of St. Clare’s daughters, and common to the entire
Franciscan family, is the “life according to the Gospel”.
The Gospel however, which has been meditated upon and
lived out by Francis and Clare, is first of all the person
himself of Jesus Christ, poor and crucified, and it is also his
teachings, truly “spirit and life”. On the poor
contemplative sisters’ calling, the Gospel should become
life and personal experience, as it was for the seraphic
founders.
“The experience of Jesus Christ, who lives in us like
hope and glory (Col 1, 27) and is the source and apex of
the evangelical perfection, is realized for us who pass
through the world as “pilgrims and strangers”, in a “form
of holy unity and highest poverty” through which,
“following in the footsteps of the same Jesus Christ and
those of his holy Mother”, we have chosen to “live an
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enclosed life with respect to the body, so as to dedicate
ourselves to the Lord with a free spirit”. (R. Prof. 5, 3; Gen
CC, art. 3)

Therefore, a daughter of St. Clare is to make the

Gospel not only her way of life, but even more so the basis
of her contemplation and centre of reference.
“Let us try then to feed ourselves continuously with the
reading and meditation of the Gospel and, imitating Mary,
… let us keep in our hearts the facts and words of the Lord,
which are spirit and life (Lk 2,19 & 51; Jn 6, 62),
conforming our mind and our conduct to them” (CCChap.
2).

Living in Obedience, Without Property

and in Chastity

This Gospel programme is integrated within the entire

ensemble of requirements and invitations Jesus addresses to
whoever would want to closely follow him, cooperating
with him to build up his kingdom. Its concrete expression
is, in consecrated life, what we have traditionally termed as
“evangelical counsels”.
It is not just committing ourselves to keeping them by
avoiding sins against obedience, poverty and chastity, but
by living them out. “Life in obedience” is the constant
attitude of adherence to God’s saving will and of
availability to fraternal service in the mystery of Christ’s
redemptive obedience. “Life in poverty” causes one to be
identified through joyful detachment with “the poverty and
humility of our Lord Jesus Christ”, and with the virtual
reality of anyone who may endure extreme poverty or
abandonment.5 “Life in chastity” is the permanent attention

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to maintaining one’s heart free and undivided for divine
intimacy and self-donation to the brothers.

Obedience and Reverence to the Pope

and to the Roman Church

The same principle of faith that brought St. Francis to

submit his form of life to the scrutiny and approval of the
hierarchic Church, causes now Clare to look at her group as
to a “little flock that the Lord and Father begot in his Holy
Church by St. Francis’ word and example”. (Test.)
The devoted and loving obedience to the Supreme
Pontiff is the guarantee of fidelity to evangelical life, as
required in the last chapter of the Rule, by charging the
sisters with the duty of ever requesting for a Cardinal as
their Protector.
As it was with St. Francis, this simple and firm
obedience, if on one side gave her consolation of seeing
herself surrounded by the love and admiration of the
Apostolic See, on the other hand, it required of her an
uneasy position between the will to obey and the need of
defending the essential contents of the Poor Sister’s
vocation.
We shall return to this important aspect of the Saint’s
Church conscience in our comment to chapter XII.

Obedience to St. Francis and

his Successors

Clare repeats up to five times in her Rule and

Testament that she, together with her sisters “promised
obedience to St. Francis”. Such an insistence has no other
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purpose but to stress the bond to the Seraphic Father, to his
ideal and to his First Order. To the responsible ones of this
Order, who seemed to be unwilling to assume the guidance
of the sisters of the Second Order, the Saint exhibits the
firm commitment acquired by St. Francis:
“I resolve and promise for myself and for my
brothers to have that same loving care and special
solicitude for you as (I have) for them.” (The Form
of Life)

Both Gregory IX and Innocent IV had set the Poor

Ladies’ monasteries under the protection of the Superior of
the Minor Brothers, but they found the responsibility too
heavy and tried by all means to be released from it. They
succeeded up to a certain extent in 1250, when the Cardinal
Protector took upon himself the governance of the
monasteries.
Yet, Clare did not surrender in defeat, and wished to
leave her will quite clear in her Rule.
At the canonical situation of many of the monasteries,
subject to Episcopal jurisdiction, the “letter” of this precept
has no application today, and neither do the first two
paragraphs of chapter XII, the one stating that the Visitator
be ever of the Order of Friars Minor, or the other one,
requesting for charity sake, a small community of brothers
close to the sister’s monastery for their spiritual and
material assistance.
What remains obvious is the “spirit” of those clauses,
coming up from the very heart of Clare: the awareness of
her evangelical vocation, common in fact to both Orders,
the oneness and mutual support in the endeavor to the one
and only ideal of poverty and minority, the right of the Poor
Sisters to get from the Friars Minor, at least in the spiritual
aspect, the help they might need, and the duty to repay
them back with the treasure of their contemplative

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experience through their testimony of a life of total
detachment and silent immolation.

An important step to bring about the realization of St.

Clare’s longings has been taken with the creation of the
“Religious Assistants in each of the federations, and with
the ad tempus attributions granted to the General Minister
by the Motu proprio “Eclessiae Sanctae” regarding the
renewal and revision of the sister’s Constitutions. Along
that same line, a special Office for the sisters has been
established at the General Curia of the three branches of the
First Order.
The new Canon Law foresees the co-association of the
sisters’ monasteries to a male Order, while “maintaining
their own way of life and government according to their
own Constitutions”. In such a case, “the reciprocal rights
and duties are to be clearly determined in such a manner
that the said “co-association” may serve to their spiritual
welfare”. Those that are not associated “are entrusted to
the special care of the diocesan bishop in accordance with
the norms of the Canon Law”. (Can. 614, 615).
According to the Constitutions, “the monasteries alone
are co-associated to the First Order that have been
expressly set under the authority of its superiors; the rest of
them remain under the care of the diocesan bishop. In
order to get the status of the co-associated”, the grant of the
Holy See is required after the favorable vow of the
conventual chapter, the consent of the diocesan bishop and
the acceptance of the General Minister (Gen CC, art. 253;
CC cap. 199)

Obedience to Sister Clare and

her Successors

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 This last clause of Chapter I corresponds to a similar
one of St. Francis’ Rule and is part of the profession
formula. Life in obedience is really not only an inner
attitude of acceptance of God’s will and of docility to the
Holy Spirit’s impulse, but is indeed embodied in a person
who, no matter how much she exercises her authority of
humble service, will always be, to the sister who has
promised obedience, an irreplaceable instrument of living
this same obedience.
Each Abbess is the successor of St. Clare or, as St.
Veronica Giuliani would say, “She takes the place of the
Blessed Mother”.6 the sisters in each community owe
obedience to their “mother and servant” just as it was
promised and offered to the Foundress by the first St.
Damiano Community.

Footnotes to Chapter 1

1. Bull “Cum nobis”, 14 at I. Omaechevarria p. 231.

2. The news, not quite reliable, comes from a certain Stephen, a
lay brother somehow guilty of animosity against Philip
Longo. Hist. Franc. Arch. 12 (1919) pp. 382-384.
3. Paul VI, “Evangelica testificatio, 12.
4. Rnb, 1.
5. The formula “without property”, borrowed from St. Francis’
Rule was the one imposed at that time by the Holy See at the
profession of the religious. St. Francis, disregarding its
juridical sense, interpreted the “living without property” as
having the spirit detached and free from selfish interests.
6. St. Veronica Giuliani, Diary VI: Le lettere, Citta dei Castello,
1992, 2nd ed., p. 63).

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