ILIA DELIO

IDENTITY AND IN CLARE OF ASSISI’S WRITINGS

INTRODUCTION

Clare of Assisi was a medieval woman who desired to follow the path of and did so in her own unique way. Although she lived under the Bene- dictine Rule for almost forty years, her writings betray a distinct Franciscan spirit with a profound focus on the Incarnation. Her path to God is one that blends the unique capacity of the human person for God, and God’s total love for the human person shown in the crucified Christ. It is in the relationship between the crucified Christ and the human person that Clare develops a new under- standing of contemplation that deviates from the traditional monastic ascent. She offers a path to God that draws an integral link between self-identity, con- templation and transformation, one that complements the evangelical life of Francis. For Clare, contemplation is a penetrating gaze into the heart of the cru- cified Christ. This gaze is the basis of one’s self-identity in relation to God. It is precisely in the disclosure of one’s identity that one is transformed in God. She indicates that transformation in love is itself imitatio Christi. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between identity and contemplation in Clare’s writings and to discuss its significance in view of evangelical life. It is sug- gested that contemplation leads to self-identity and thus to transformation in love, which is the bringing to birth of Christ in one’s own life.

CONTEMPLATION – THE MONASTIC QUEST

If one reads the Benedictine Rule, one may surmise that Benedict of Nursia had little interest in contemplation for monastic life. Rather, the goal of the life was simply to seek God (quaerere Deum). Only at the end of his Rule (Ch. 73) did Benedict indicate that those who had a special gift of grace could strive for con- templation but it was not the goal of the life itself. Although Benedict offered a structure for monastic life, he spoke very little on . Monastic spiritual writers following Benedict, however, wrote various treatises on prayer and con- templation that became classics in the Christian tradition. The Carthusian monk, Guigo II, for example, described the path to God as a ladder of ascent. 140 ILIA DELIO

The image of the ladder, symbolizing the Neoplatonic ascent, meant that mate- rial reality was to be transcended as one sought the perfection of spiritual union. The notion of the monastic life as the ideal environment for contempla- tion corresponded to the fact that the Christian Neoplatonic ascent depended on prayer and solitude as essential to the contemplation of God. Although the primary purpose of the monastic life was to seek God, the structure of the life according to the themes of solitude, silence, prayer, , and con- templation enabled the monk to aspire to the highest goal of the spiritual life: union with God.1 In his Scala claustralium Guigo described the four stages of reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation as a ladder by which the monk could be lifted from earth to heaven. He summarized these stages as follows: Reading is the careful study of the Scriptures, concentrating all one’s powers on it. Meditation is the busy application of the mind to seek with the help of one’s own reason for knowledge of hidden truth. Prayer is the heart’s devoted turning to God to drive away evil and obtain what is good. Contemplation is when the mind is in some sort lifted up to God and held above itself, so that it tastes the joys of everlasting sweetness.2 Guigo defined the functions of the steps with a decided emphasis on the rational character of the process. The careful investigation of the Scriptures requires the attention of the mind. Meditation is the studious action of the mind, investigating the knowledge of hidden truth under the impetus of one’s reason. Prayer is defined in terms of the heart and contemplation as the eleva- tion of the mind to God.3 The ideal of the monk was to strive for unceasing prayer, to ‘pray always’. The prayerful reading of Scripture () and the pursuit of contemplation together with the Liturgy of the Hours aimed toward this goal. Although the role of the humanity of Christ played a more significant role in the ascent to God in eleventh and twelfth century monastic spirituality, still at the highest level of union, the humanity of Christ gave way to the eternal divine Word. Nowhere is this more evident than in the writings of whose sermons on the Song of Songs reflected the idea that devotion

1 Ilia Delio, Crucified Love: ’s of the Crucified Christ, Quincy (IL) 1998, 190. 2 Guigo II, The Ladder of Monks and Twelve (trans. & introd. Edmund Colledge & James Walsh), Kalamazoo (MI) 1981, 68. 3 Keith Egan, ‘Guigo II: The Theology of the Contemplative Life’, in: Rozanne Elder (Ed.), The Spirituality of Western Christendom, Kalamazoo (MI) 1976, 111-112. IDENTITY AND CONTEMPLATION 141 to Christ was in the service of contemplation.4 The visible reality of Christ’s life was to enable the invisible reality of God’s love to be attained. For Bernard, the journey to God was a movement from carnal love to spiritual love; thus, the visible reality of Christ’s life was to enable the invisible reality of God’s love to be attained.5 Contemplation, therefore, began with the desire for God ‘here below’ but found its fulfillment in the vision of God in the heavenly Jerusalem. Union with God was a union of wills where love itself became a type of knowl- edge of God. Clare’s way of contemplation does not follow this Neoplatonic ascent. Con- templation is not an ascent above, a transcendence of the material world in pur- suit of spiritual perfection. Her path is different from the Benedictine ladder of humility described in Chapter seven of Benedict’s Rule which takes the monk up the twelve steps that lead him out of the world to God. Rather, Clare’s notion of contemplation, like that of Francis, begins in the encounter with the other, that is, the God who comes to us in Jesus Christ. Contemplation is not climbing a ladder but a gazing upon the other in such a way that ultimately one is drawn into the other, not by way of absorption but by way of differentiation. The more one gazes upon the incarnate Word of God, the more one discovers the truth of oneself in God and, we might say, God in oneself. This type of relationship with God is not one of ascent but one of mutuality. The God that Clare relates to is a God who desires to be in full relationship with us, and her path of contempla- tion is one of making that relationship a fruitful union in love.

CLARE OF ASSISI’S EVANGELICAL CONTEMPLATION

Clare placed a profound emphasis on the Incarnation with its decisive meaning that God has come to us. Her desire to dwell in the good news of the Incarnation

4 For example Bernard writes, ‘So the soul returns and is converted to the Word to be reformed by him and conformed to him. […] Such conformity weds the soul to the Word’. See Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon 83.3 (OB 2:299). Engl. trans. Irene Edmonds, On the Song of Songs IV, Kalamazoo (MI) 1980, 182. The critical edition of Bernard’s works is Sancti Bernardi Opera (Ed. Jean Leclercq, Charles H. Talbot, Henry M. Rochais), 9 vols., Rome 1957-1977. Refer- ences to the critical edition are listed in parenthese as OB followed by volume and page num- ber. 5 Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon 20.6-8 (OB 1:118). Engl. trans. Killian Walsh, On the Song of Songs I, Spencer (MA) 1971, 152. Bernard writes: ‘I think this is the principal reason why the invisible God willed to be seen in the flesh and to converse with men as a man. He wanted to recapture the affections of carnal men who were unable to love in any other way, by first draw- ing them to the salutary love of his own humanity, and then gradually to raise them to a spir- itual love’. 142 ILIA DELIO suggests that her way of life is more distinctly evangelical than it is monastic – at least in its spirituality. Evangelical life emerged in the late twelfth and thir- teenth centuries as many people who desired to follow Christ without entering a monastery took up a radical Gospel life emphasizing poverty, mendicancy and preaching the Gospel.6 Francis of Assisi was among those who were novel innovators of this Gospel way of life in the Middle Ages. Although scholars suggest that Clare wanted to follow Francis in his way of life but for various reasons was unable to, she seems to have tapped into evangelical spirituality in her own way. Clare’s spiritual path is unique because it blends elements of monastic life (the Divine Office, for example) with an evangelical-incarnational focus. Unlike Guigo, Clare did not see contemplation as the highest stage of the spiritual journey nor did she view the journey as a ladder of ascent to God. Rather, her incarnational focus impelled her to follow a spirituality of encoun- tering God in the other – in the crucified Christ. In her letters to the noble- woman, Agnes of Prague, Clare describes the spiritual journey as an accept- ance of the kenotic embrace of the crucified Spouse who, in the poverty of self-gift, is the beautiful Spouse to whom Agnes is to be united. She writes: ‘You are a spouse and the mother and the sister of our Lord Jesus Christ. […] Be strengthened in the holy service which you have undertaken out of a burn- ing desire for the Poor Crucified who for the sake of all of us took upon Him- self the passion of the cross’.7 Clare lays out her path to God in a fourfold manner that can be likened to the monastic lectio divina.8 She advises Agnes to gaze upon the crucified Spouse and by gaze she means seeing, considering and loving the God who comes to us in Christ as she writes: ‘O most noble Queen, gaze upon [Him], consider [Him], contemplating [Him], as you

6 For a discussion on evangelical life see Joseph P. Chinnici, ‘Evangelical and Apostolic Ten- sions’, in: Proceedings: ‘Our Franciscan Charism Today’, New Jersey 1987, 1-32; J.P. Chinnici, ‘The Prophetic Heart: The Evangelical Form of Religious Life in the Contemporary United States’, in: The Cord 44 (1994), 292-306; Thaddeus Horgan, ‘Evangelical Life in Apostolic Communities’, in: The Cord 36 (1986), 246-251; Kathleen Uhler, ‘The Charism and Contri- butions of the Franciscan Evangelical Life in Church and World’, in: The Cord 44 (1994), 339-346; Dorothy McCormack, ‘The Essential Elements of the Evangelical Life of Francis- cans’, in: The Cord 38 (1988), 241-246. 7 Clare of Assisi, ‘The First Letter to Agnes of Prague’ (1 LAg) 12-13 (Écrits, 86) in: Clare of Assisi: Early Documents (2nd edition, ed. & trans. Regis J. Armstrong), New York 1993, 36. All English translations of Clare’s letters are from this edition and noted as Early Documents fol- lowed by page number. The critical edition of Clare’s letters is Claire d’Assise: Écrits (introd., trans. & notes Marie-France Becker, Jean-François Godet, and Thadée Matura), Sources Chre- tiennes, vol. 325, Paris 1985. Latin texts are indicated as Écrits followed by page number. 8 See Edith Van den Goorbergh, ‘Clare’s Prayer as Spiritual Journey’, in: Greyfriars Review 10 (1996) no.3, 283-292. IDENTITY AND CONTEMPLATION 143 desire to imitate [Him]’.9 Clare’s way of contemplation does not begin with self-reflection but with accepting the God who comes to us in the human flesh of the other and thus going out of oneself to see the other. Rather than fleeing the world, contemplation is to lead one to a new and deeper vision of the world. The idea of contemplation as gazing upon the Crucified is unique to Clare. Contemplation begins with the gaze on Christ crucified and is the penetrating gaze that accepts the disclosure of God in the fragile human flesh of the other, that is, the crucified Christ. This encounter is also self-revelatory since the God who comes to us is the ground of our being as well. To accept God in the other, therefore, is to accept the other as part of our identity. Clare describes the image of the crucified Christ as a ‘mirror’ and she advises Agnes to ‘place your mind before the mirror of eternity’.10 For Clare, Christ is the mirror in which God reveals Himself to us and we are revealed to ourselves as we begin to see the truth of who we are – our identity –in the mirror of the cross. The more we contemplate Christ (by gazing upon the Crucified), the more we discover our identity. The gaze, therefore, is both a looking at and receptivity to the appear- ance of God’s self-giving love in the concrete figure of the crucified Christ. In its receptivity the gaze is self-reflective in that the God who is revealed in the crucified Christ is the image in which we are created and thus the basis of our identity.11 Contemplation is creative since it transforms the one who gazes in the mirror into a reflection of the image itself. That is, the more we contem- plate Christ, the more we discover and come to resemble the image of God. This image of God, brought to light in the one who gazes into the mirror of Christ, is expressed as a new ‘birth’ of Christ in the believer.

CONTEMPLATION AND IDENTITY

Although Clare sought a unity with God through contemplation with the cru- cified Spouse, union was not the goal of relationship with God; rather, the goal was imitation (cf. 2 LAg 20). The gaze on the crucified Spouse is to lead

9 Clare of Assisi, ‘The Second Letter to Agnes of Prague’ (2 LAg), 20 (Écrits, 96). Engl. trans. Armstrong, Early Documents, 42. 10 Clare of Assisi, ‘The Third Letter to Agnes of Prague’ (3 LAg), 12 (Écrits, 103). Engl. trans. Armstrong, Early Documents, 45. For a more detailed examination of Clare and mirror spiri- tuality see Regis J. Armstrong, ‘Clare of Assisi: The Mirror Mystic’, in: The Cord 35 (1985), 195-202. 11 See Ilia Delio, ‘Clare of Assisi: Beauty and Transformation’, in: Studies in Spirituality 12 (2002), 68-81, esp. 75. 144 ILIA DELIO to imitation of the Spouse. We become what we love and whom we love shapes what we become. Imitation is not a literal mimicking of Christ; rather, it means becoming the image of the beloved, an image disclosed through transformation. In her third letter Clare writes: ‘Place your mind before the mirror of eternity! Place your soul in the brilliance of glory! Place your heart in the figure of the divine substance! And transform your entire being into the image of the Godhead itself through contemplation!’12 For Clare, the path from contemplation to imitation includes self-identity. Although she does not explicitly describe identity in her directives to Agnes, an examination of letters two and four in tandem suggests that she links self-identity with imitatio Christi which is the purpose of transformation. Clare describes the energy of relationship with God as love and she sees con- templation as a deepening of love whereby Agnes is to ‘love Him totally who gave Himself totally for [her] love’.13 The progression of prayer that leads to contemplation begins with the gaze on the crucified Christ and continues to penetrate the depths of this reality until the margins of poverty and humility give way to the heart of charity which is hidden in the suffering heart of Christ. As a deepening of love, contemplation is a continuous action, an ongoing trans- formation, since nothing is more liberating and active than love. This love not only enables one like Agnes to see more clearly and deeply into the depths of the Spouse’s love for her, but to feel and taste the hidden sweetness of God.14 To place oneself in the mirror of the cross, therefore, is to expose oneself to the joys and sorrows of being human, the joy of God’s all-embracing love and the sorrow of seeing the Spouse ‘despised, struck, and scourged’.15 In the mirror of the cross we are to place our entire being – heart, mind, and soul – and to ‘transform our whole being into the image of the Godhead itself through con- templation’.16 But what does it mean to transform our whole being into the image of the Godhead itself who appears amidst the sufferings of the cross? Clare seems to grapple with the fact that the human person has the capacity for God but is thwarted in this capacity because of sin or brokenness. ‘Is it not

12 3 LAg 12-13 (Écrits, 103). Engl. trans. Armstrong, Early Documents, 45. 13 3 LAg 15 (Écrits, 104). ‘illum totaliter diligas, qui se totum pro tua dilectione donavit’. Engl. trans. Armstrong, Early Documents, 46. 14 3 LAg 4 (Écrits, 103). Clare writes: ‘So that you too may feel what his friends feel as they taste the hidden sweetness of God’. 15 2 LAg 20 (Écrits, 96). Clare writes: ‘Your Spouse […] was despised, struck, scourged untold times throughout his entire body, and then died amidst the sufferings of the cross’. Engl. trans. Armstrong, Early Documents, 42. 16 3 LAg 12-13 (Écrits, 102). ‘Pone mentem tuam in speculo aeternitatis, pone animan tuam in splendore gloriae, pone cor tuum in figura divinae substantiae et transforma te ipsam totam per contemplationem in imagine divinitatis ipsius’. IDENTITY AND CONTEMPLATION 145 clear’, she writes, ‘that the soul of the faithful person […] is greater than heaven itself?’17 This capacity for God, she indicates, can only be realized by following Christ in poverty and humility.18 Pride, she writes, leads to self-deception: ‘How many kings and queens of this world let themselves be deceived! For even though their pride may reach the skies and their heads through the clouds, in the end they are as forgotten as a dung-heap!’19 Poverty and humility in Clare’s view make room for love, and love is that indwelling of the Spirit that allows us to search the depths of the crucified Spouse who reveals the face of God through the suffering of the cross. To penetrate the truth of this reality, one must first penetrate the truth of one’s own being with its fragile tendencies and weaknesses. Contemplation for Clare is the means for discovering the truly human without disguise.20 The mirror of the Crucified tells us how we are most like God in this world through suffering, poverty, and humility, and what we do to God in this world – crucify Him. In this mirror, therefore, we see the greatness of the human capacity to love and the sorrow of human sinfulness. If contemplation is a penetrating truth of reality, it must first lead to the truth of one’s self in God. The cross indicates to us the true image of ourselves, and the image we need to gaze upon within ourselves – our own poverty, humility and suffering. Poverty, humility and charity are the ‘footprints of Christ’ according to Clare and we are called to find these footprints within the depths of our own person, for these footprints reflect the image of God.

The relationship between contemplation and identity is described more explicitly (although briefly) in Clare’s fourth letter to Agnes where she advises Agnes to ‘look upon that mirror each day […] and continually study your face within it, so that you may adorn yourself within and without with beautiful robes’.21 The rela- tionship between contemplation and the human face is an interesting one. The idea of the ‘face’ not only connotes uniqueness and distinction, that which makes

17 3 LAg 21 (Écrits, 104). Engl. trans. Armstrong, Early Documents, 46. 18 3 LAg 25 (Écrits, 106). Engl. trans. Armstrong, Early Documents, 46. 19 3 LAg 27-28 (Écrits, 106). Engl. trans. Armstrong, Early Documents, 47. Francis of Assisi had similar admonitions to his followers. See, for example, his ‘Admonition 7’, in: Regis J. Arm- strong, J.A. Wayne Hellman, & William J. Short (Eds.), Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, vol. 1, The Saint, New York 1999, 132. This volume is hereafter abbreviated as FA:ED fol- lowed by volume and page number. 20 Michael Blastic describes this phenomenological type of contemplation as distinctive of both Francis and Clare’s path of contemplation. See Michael W. Blastic, ‘Contemplation and Compassion: A Franciscan Ministerial Spirituality’, in: Anthony Carrozzo, Vincent Cushing, & Kenneth Himes (Eds.), Franciscan Leadership in Ministry: Foundations in History, Theology, and Spirituality, New York 1997, 165. (Spirit and Life 7) 21 Clare of Assisi, ‘The Fourth Letter to Agnes of Prague’ (4 LAg) 14 -16 (Écrits, 112-114). Engl. trans. Armstrong, Early Documents, 50. See Delio, ‘Beauty and Transformation’, 75. 146 ILIA DELIO a person what (s)he is, but it connotes form or expression since the face is what one sees. The face discloses the person in a particular way and therefore reflects one’s personal identity or self-expression.22 If contemplation is to study one’s face in the mirror of the cross then con- templation is the way the self achieves its true form as image of God. To study one’s face in the cross is to ask, what am I? In this respect, the self is not a sub- stance separate from God but is created precisely in relationship to God. In Clare’s view, identity is uncovering the treasure within, the image of God in which we are created and by which we are in relationship with God. Identity, therefore, is the creation of the self as image of God, creation itself being rela- tionship with God. In Clare’s words, it is finding ‘the incomparable treasure hidden in the field and in the heart of the human’.23 Prayer that leads to con- templation of the crucified Spouse leads to an ongoing creation of self whereby the emergence of who we are in the mirror of the Crucified is expressed in what we become (our ‘face’) and in the virtues we acquire both ‘within and without’. As we come to be who we are called to be in relation to God (self-identity), God shows himself to the universe through his constant and continual creation of the self. The self that comes to be through a union with God in love is the self in which God is reflected, that is, the image of God. For Clare, this is imi- tation of Christ, the crucified Spouse. The enfleshment of God in one’s life through contemplation and transformation is the renewal of Christ in the world. While Clare’s path entails a truthful relationship with God, it also involves a truthful relationship with one’s neighbor for her spiritual path takes place in the context of community. In this respect, gazing upon the mirror of the Crucified is not an exclusive human-divine relationship, that is, a vertical relationship with a transcendent God. Rather, the divine is enfleshed in the other – imma- nent – so that to follow Christ is to follow the one who follows Christ, and to see oneself in the mirror of the Crucified is to see oneself in the face of one’s suffering sisters or brothers. Clare’s path is essentially Pauline (1 Cor 11: ‘imi- tate me as I imitate Christ’) and she directs Agnes to the fullness of being

22 The postmodern philosopher Emmanuel Levinas claims that the face of the genuine other should release us from all desire for totality and open us to a true sense of the infinite because inscribed in the face of the other is the trace of a transcendence. One cannot grasp the other in knowledge, for the other is infinite and overflows in the totality of comprehension and of being. See Edith Wsychogrod, Saints and Postmodernism: Revisioning Moral Philosophy, Chicago 1990, 148; Robyn Horner, Rethinking God as Gift: Marion, Derrida and the Limits of Phenomenology, New York 2001, 64-66. 23 3 LAg 7 (Écrits, 102). Clare writes: ‘I see that by humility, the virtue of faith, and the strong arms of poverty, you have taken hold of that incomparable treasure hidden in the field of the world and of the human heart’. Engl. trans. Armstrong, Early Documents, 45. IDENTITY AND CONTEMPLATION 147 through relationship with a God who is enfleshed in fragile humanity, that is, the humanity of community.24 For Clare, prayer without community cannot lead to the fullness of one’s self-identity, since it is in community that the mir- ror of one’s identity is reflected in the other, the neighbor who we are called to love. Love transforms because it unites, and it is in loving our neighbor through compassion that we become more ourselves, and in becoming more ourselves, we become Christ. Contemplation leads to imitation through self-identity when we come to the truth of who we are in relation to God and to our neigh- bor in whom God lives. The more we allow ourselves to be transformed by the Spirit of love, the more we become ourselves, and the more we become our- selves, the more we are like God. Each of us is created in a unique way to express the love of God in the world and to show the face of God to the world. The integral relationship between self-identity and imitatio Christi through contemplation is a path of transformation by which love draws forth the image in which we are created, an image which is made beautiful through the cross of suffering and love.

CONTEMPLATION AND TRANSFORMATION

Although the centrality of the cross in Clare’s spirituality is undeniably present, hers is not a spirituality of sin and guilt; rather it is one of freedom and trans- formation. The cross is the mirror of truth, where we come to see ourselves in our capacity to love and in our brokenness. An honest acceptance of who we are with our strengths and weaknesses is liberating in Clare’s view. Dwelling in the mirror of the crucified Christ is to lead to that place of inner freedom, a free- dom that is born of the joy of the Spirit (4 LAg 4) and of union with the Spouse (4 LAg 10). Clare advises Agnes to ‘study her face in the mirror each day’ (4 LAg 14) so that she may be ‘adorned with beautiful robes within and without’ (v. 16), becoming transformed in union with the One she loves. Clare does not use the language of transformation per se because to be adorned within and without is to ‘put on Christ’ or to ‘re-present Christ’, that is, trans- formation is imitation. The relationship of the mirror and self-identity which Clare describes in her fourth letter corresponds to the method of gazing upon the Crucified which she describes in her second letter. A consistent gaze on the crucified Spouse ultimately leads to imitation (cf. 2 LAg 20), for when we cling to the crucified Spouse with all our heart we become an image of this Spouse in

24 For a discussion on the following of Christ in the context of community for Clare see Ilia Delio, ‘Mirrors and Footprints: Metaphors of Relationship in Clare of Assisi’s Writings’, in: Studies in Spirituality 10 (2000), 167-181. 148 ILIA DELIO our own lives. What Clare indicates is that transformation/imitation of Christ cannot take place apart from self-identity or acceptance of one’s self in relation to God. Clare’s way of prayer is a spiral that goes to the depth of the human person’s capacity for God and the capacity of God’s love for the human person. Her understanding of contemplation complements that of Francis who described contemplation as ‘seeing with the eyes of the Spirit’. In his Admonition One Francis writes: ‘As they saw only his flesh by means of their bodily sight, yet believed Him to be God as they contemplated Him with the eyes of faith, so as we see bread and wine with our bodily eyes, we too are to see and firmly believe them to be his most holy body and blood living and true’.25 Contemplation, for Francis, is a penetrating gaze that gets to the truth of reality where the presence of the living God is revealed.26 The key to contemplation is the Spirit of the Lord. One must have the Spirit of the Lord (who joins one to Christ)27 to see into the depths of things.28 This too is Clare’s idea. One who is joined to Christ has the spirit of Christ and thus imitates Christ through the very expression of one’s face. It is the Spirit that conforms one to Christ and enables one to see into the depths of things. The gift of the Spirit is the fruit of poverty by which one is free enough to accept the embrace of God’s love in the embrace of the crucified Christ. The link between contemplation and ongoing transformation in Christ means that as one comes to a deeper truth of oneself in relation to God so too one is filled with the Spirit of God. It is the Spirit that allows one to see with the heart and to contemplate the other by a penetrating gaze. In light of this relationship Clare writes: ‘Therefore that mirror suspended on the wood of the cross, urged those who passed by to consider, saying: “All you who pass by the way, look and see if there is any suffering like my suffering!” (Lam 1:12)’.29 It is difficult to see another person’s suffering if we have not come to terms with our own suffering. We cannot see clearly the truth of the other if we have not

25 Francis of Assisi, ‘Admonition 1, 20’, in: FA:ED 1, 129. 26 See for example Francis’ ‘Letter to the Entire Order’ 27-28 (FA:ED 1, 118) where he writes: ‘Look at the humility of God and pour out your hearts before Him. […] Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves, that he who gives himself totally to you may receive you totally!’ 27 Again, Francis gave primacy to the Spirit of the Lord as the one who makes life in Christ pos- sible. In his ‘Letter to the Faithful’ he writes: ‘We are spouses when the faithful soul united by the Holy Spirit to our Lord Jesus Christ’. See his ‘Later Admonition and Exhortation’ 51, in: FA:ED 1, 49. 28 The notion of penetrating vision is distinctive of Franciscan contemplation. Bonaventure used the term ‘contuition’ to describe this penetrating vision which sees a thing in itself and in its relation to God. For a definition of contuition see Ilia Delio, Simply Bonaventure: An Intro- duction to his Life, Thought and Writings, New York 2001, 199. 29 4 LAg 25 (Écrits, 114). Engl. trans. Armstrong, Early Documents, 51. IDENTITY AND CONTEMPLATION 149 first seen clearly the truth of ourselves. The relationship between ‘seeing’ and ‘becoming’ is governed by love since love shapes what we become. As one sees the sufferings of Christ in the other, so one is to love: ‘From this moment, then, O Queen of our heavenly King, let yourselves be inflamed more strongly with the fervor of charity!’.30 What Clare suggests is that contemplation is not a pre- liminary step to transformation/imitation but rather one must strive to be transformed in Christ in order to contemplate the truth (depths) of Christ. The mutual relationship between contemplation and transformation governed by self-identity involves self-acceptance and self-awareness or, we might say, accept- ing the poverty of our human condition. Contemplation deepens as we con- tinue to be transformed in Christ by coming to the truth of our identity. If contemplative vision is to foster a continuous deepening of love, it is, at the same time, an openness to the Spirit which, in Clare’s view, means a dynamic relationship with God. In her second letter to Agnes she writes: ‘go forward securely, joyfully, and swiftly […] in the pursuit of that perfection to which the Spirit of the Lord has called you’.31 She uses language of perpetual movement (‘run’, ‘go forward’) to evoke a dynamic relationship with God, sug- gesting that the self never really attains a final form but that each moment is God’s constant and never-ending renewal of the self’s creation. In her fourth letter she writes: ‘Draw me after You! […] I will run and not tire!’32 Relation- ship with God is a progression from ‘good to better, from virtue to virtue’.33 Her emphasis on the dynamism of the spiritual life resonates with the doctrine of epektasis or perpetual change in that the soul continually longs for God and continues to grow toward God even in eternal life.34 Clare’s notion of perpetual progress in the spiritual life means keeping one’s gaze fixed on the God of gra- cious love who, as Crucified, is always before us, attracting us in love and lur- ing us to become beautiful in love.35

The relationship between seeing and loving which is evident in the writings of Francis36 and ,37 as well as in Clare, marks a type of

30 4 LAg 27 (Écrits, 116). Engl. trans. Armstrong, Early Documents, 51. 31 2 LAg 13-14 (Écrits, 94). Engl. trans. Armstrong, Early Documents, 41. 32 4 LAg 30-32 (Écrits, 106). Engl. trans. Armstrong, Early Documents, 51-52. 33 1 LAg 31 (Écrits, 90); Delio, ‘Beauty and Transformation’, 76-77. 34 For a discussion on perpetual progress in see Andrew Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: from Plato to Denys, Oxford 1981, 88-91; Delio, ‘Beauty and Transformation’, 76-77. 35 Delio, ‘Beauty and Transformation’, 77. 36 Francis of Assisi, Admonition 1 (FA:ED 1, 129); ‘A Letter to the Entire Order’ 28 (FA:ED 1, 118). 37 Angela of Foligno, Complete Works (trans. & introd. Paul Lachance), New York 1993, 242. 150 ILIA DELIO contemplation that complements the form of Franciscan life known as evan- gelical life. Because evangelical life is centered on the good news of Jesus Christ, it is a life that brings Christ to birth anew in one’s life, bearing wit- ness to the Gospel by example (cf. ‘Earlier Rule’ 17.3). Clare perceived this good news of the Incarnation in the mirror of the cross. Here she discovered that God has poured out his love to us, a love visibly expressed in the suffer- ing and beauty of the crucified Christ. To enter into this love for Clare is to re-center one’s heart in God. ‘Love Him totally’, she writes, ‘who gave Him- self totally for your love’.38 The path to union with God, as Clare indicates, begins with an acceptance of God’s love in Christ, followed by a continuous gaze into the truth of this love, which should lead to a growth in self-identity in relation to God. Only one who is poor can gaze long enough to become inwardly free to be joined with Christ. Poverty is essential to union with God for Clare. She realized that a life without anything of one’s own, sine proprio, frees us to enter more pro- foundly into the mystery of God. ‘O blessed poverty’, she writes, ‘who bestows eternal riches on those who love and embrace her! O holy poverty, to those who possess and desire you, God promises the kingdom of heaven and offers, indeed, eternal glory and blessed life’.39 The freedom that arises from poverty is not independence or autonomy but the freedom of the Spirit who not only joins one to Christ but enables one to gaze into the heart of Christ. Contem- plation is not a solitary flight to God nor an intellectual union. Rather, it is a penetrating gaze of the other and of oneself – of the other, as the one in whom God is enfleshed, and of oneself, as one who is capable of union with God. One who ‘puts on Christ’ in one’s own life and sees the suffering of Christ in the other must ultimately love like Christ by way of compassionate, self-giving love. That is, gazing upon the crucified love of God should impel us to assume the form of crucified love in our own lives. Becoming Christ, seeing Christ in the other, and loving like Christ marks Clare’s way of contemplation as one distinctive of evangelical life in that the good news of the Incarnation is renewed in one’s life. Contemplation is not a matter of self-reflection nor does it require a flight from the world; rather it is accepting the other, the God who comes to us in fragile humanity. Contempla- tion is finding the truth of who we are in relation to the incarnate Word of God and incarnating that Word in our own lives. To see, to love and to become what we love is the fruit of contemplation which can only be realized when we accept the poverty of being human and, in this poverty, accepting the call to union

38 3 LAg 15 (Écrits, 104). Engl. trans. Armstrong, Early Documents, 46. 39 1 LAg 15-16 (Écrits, 86). Engl. trans. Armstrong, Early Documents, 36. IDENTITY AND CONTEMPLATION 151 with God which marks the greatness of the Christian vocation. Clare writes: ‘Indeed, is it not clear that the soul of the faithful person, the most worthy of all creatures because of the grace of God, is greater than heaven itself, since the heavens with the rest of creation cannot contain their Creator and only the faithful soul is his dwelling place and throne, and this only through the charity that the wicked lack’.40 For a woman who lived outside the marketplace in the solitude of San Dami- ano, Clare had profound insight with regard to renewal of the Gospel life and the life of the Church. In her letters to Agnes she brought to light a path to union with God that was truly evangelical in spirit. The one who follows Christ is to bring Christ to birth in one’s life,41 and in this way to become a co-worker with God. She writes: ‘I consider you a co-worker of God Himself and a support of the weak members of his body’.42 Clare’s evangelical spirituality is ecclesial in nature. Whoever is transformed in the mirror of Christ is called to radiate and manifest this image, bearing witness to the risen Christ. Contemplation and imitation through self-identity and transformation in love make her way of life truly an indwelling in the mystical body of Christ.

SUMMARY

Clare of Assisi described a spiritual path to God in her letters to Agnes of Prague that was decisively incarnational. This paper focuses specifically on the relationship between self-identity and contemplation in her writings, as these lead to union with God. Although Clare lived a monastic life, it is clear that she did not adopt the monastic spir- itual ascent in which contemplation is the goal of the spiritual life. Rather, Clare describes contemplation as a penetrating gaze on the beloved crucified Spouse, a gaze which essentially permeates the entire spiritual journey. Contemplation is not the goal of the journey but the means by which one, in union with Christ, becomes a reflection of Christ. For Clare, imitation (of Christ) is the fruit of union with God and the goal of the spiritual life. We are to give birth to Christ in our lives and to radiate the face of Christ to the world. To see, to love, and to become what we love marks her spirituality as one that contributes to the building up of the body of Christ, the church.

40 3 LAg 21-22 (Écrits, 104). Armstrong, Early Documents, 46. 41 This is Clare’s idea expressed in her third letter to Agnes where she writes: ‘I am speaking of Him who is the Son of the Most High Whom the Virgin brought to birth and remained a Virgin after His birth […]. As the glorious Virgin carried [Him] materially, so you, too by fol- lowing in her footprints […] [can] always carry Him spiritually in your chaste and virginal body, holding Him by whom you and all things are held together’. See 3 LAg 17, 24-26 (Écrits, 104-106). Engl. trans. Armstrong, Early Documents, 46. 42 3 LAg 8 (Écrits, 102). Engl. trans. Armstrong, Early Documents, 45. 152 ILIA DELIO

Ilia Delio, O.S.F. (born 1955 in Newark, New Jersey – U.S.A.) is Associate Professor at the Department of Ecclesiastical History, Washington Theological Union, Washington, D.C., and Director of the Franciscan Center Address: 6896 Laurel Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20012, United States of America. E-mail: [email protected]