Blessed Clare of Rimini (†1324), commemorated on February 10, lived one of the most dramatic and controversial conversions in Catholic hagiography.

Born into a wealthy family in Rimini, Clare married young and lived a life devoted to pleasure and vanity. Widowed early, exiled during political turmoil, and forced to witness the brutal execution of her father and brother, Clare returned to worldly life and remarried. Yet at the age of 34, weary of empty amusements, she began frequenting a Franciscan church — where a simple call to prayer changed everything.

After hearing a mysterious voice urging her to pray the Our Father and Hail Mary purely for the glory of God, Clare embarked on a radical spiritual transformation. She entered the Franciscan Third Order, embraced intense prayer and meditation, and later adopted extreme forms of penance rarely seen even in medieval times.

Her austerities — iron chains, fasting, exposure to the elements, and public acts of penance — shocked her contemporaries and even scandalized religious communities. Despite this, Clare devoted herself tirelessly to charity, caring for displaced Poor Clares and the suffering of Rimini during times of war.

This account, drawn from The Lives of the Saints (Butler, as presented by Fr. Alban), includes an important theological clarification: the Church does not approve or recommend Clare’s extreme penances as models for imitation. Her beatification rests not on these excesses, but on her long-standing local veneration, later officially sanctioned by Pope Pius VI in 1784.

Blessed Clare of Rimini’s life raises difficult but necessary questions:

What is true penance?

Where is the line between heroic sanctity and misguided excess?

How should modern Catholics understand radical asceticism?

This episode invites sober reflection on holiness, suffering, and the dangers of confusing personal fervor with divine approval.

📅 Feast Day: February 10
📖 Source: Butler’s Lives of the Saints
✝️ Tradition, discernment, and humility in Catholic spirituality

00:00 Introduction – Butler’s Lives of the Saints
00:20 Noble origins and early marriage
00:28 A life of vanity and pleasure
00:36 Exile and family tragedy
00:50 Return to worldly living and remarriage
00:58 The voice calling her to prayer
01:16 Apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary
01:24 Entry into the Franciscan Third Order
01:33 Embrace of extreme austerity
01:47 Iron chains, fasting, and mortification
02:01 Forty days of penance in the city wall
02:11 Charity toward the Poor Clares
02:31 Founding a convent without enclosure
02:40 Public penances and scandal
03:07 Thirst, ecstasy, and physical collapse
03:25 Final blindness and muteness
03:28 Church clarification and limits of approval
03:56 Beatification and local cultus
04:08 Reflection on holiness and fanaticism

https://sensusfidelium.com/the-lives-of-the-fathers-martyrs-and-other-principal-saints/february/

Get Butler's Lives of the Saints here: https://loretopublications.idevaffiliate.com/idevaffiliate.php?id=102&url=1

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