From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   April 17th - Blessed Clare Gambacorta, OP Widow (AC)   
   (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 three 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).   
      
      
    <><><><>   
   "There is no better test to distinguish the chaff from the grain, in the   
   Church   
   of God, than the manner in which sufferings, contradiction, and contempt are   
   borne. Whoever remains unmoved under these, is grain. Whoever rises against   
   them   
   is chaff; and the lighter and more worthless he is, the higher he rises-that   
   is,   
   the more he is agitated, and the more proudly he replies"   
   --St. Augustine   
      
   A person of high rank presented himself to St. Francis de Sales to ask a   
   benefice for an ecclesiastic who enjoyed his patronage. The Saint replied   
   that   
   as to conferring benefices he had tied his own hands, for he had decided   
   that   
   they should be given only after a competitive examination; but that he would   
   not   
   forget his recommendation, if this priest would offer himself to be examined   
   with the others. The gentleman, who was quick-tempered, believing this to be   
   only a pretext for refusal, accused him of duplicity and hypocrisy, and even   
   threatened him. When the Saint perceived that gentle words did no good, he   
   entreated him not to object at least to a private examination; and, as he   
   was   
   still dissatisfied, "Then:" said St. Francis, "you wish that I should   
   entrust to   
   him a portion of my charge with my eyes closed? Consider whether that is   
   just!"   
   At this, the gentleman began to raise his voice angrily, and to make all   
   kinds   
   of insulting remarks to the holy bishop, who bore all in unbroken silence.   
       An acquaintance of his, who was present, asked him after the scene was   
   over   
   how he had been able to endure such insults without showing the least   
   resentment. "Do not be astonished at this:" said the Saint, "for it was not   
   he   
      
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