Not clamor, but love...

Early Monday morning, I attended the Eucharist at Chiesa Santa Chiara, St. Clare’s Church, where the famous San Damiano crucifix now is suspended over the side chapel altar.  It is here so the Poor Sisters of Clare still cloistered worship in its sacred presence seven times a day.  They moved the crucifix here in 1260 from San Damiano when the church was built to commemorate St. Clare after her death.  Prior to this time, from 1212 to 1260, the Poor Sisters of Clare had lived at San Damiano upon Francis’ instructions.  Clare is so important to the city of Assisi in her own right that the citizens of the city built a magnificent church to commemorate her and to be a place where her body would be entombed. 

San Damiano Crucifix

The San Damiano crucifix is a powerful symbol.  With Christ’s outstretched arms on a bold gold background with representations of saints at the top, the evangelists, and the faithful women at the foot of the cross, Jesus’ words of “when the Son of Man is lifted up, I will draw all people to me” call irresistibly to the heart.  Francis bid the Clares and all who came to pray before this cross to use these words,

Most high glorious God, cast your light into the darkness of my heart.  Give me right faith, firm hope, perfect charity, and profound humility, with wisdom and perception, O Lord, so that I may do what is truly your holy will.  Amen. 



After sharing Communion with about 100 faithful and the cloistered sisters, whom I could not see but whose lovely voices sang the ordinary of the mass, I walked the 2 kilometers down the hill from Assisi to the Church of San Damiano.  I went there to pray and to linger in the silence of this holy place where Francis heard Christ speaking to him from the very same crucifix now kept at St. Clare’s Church, “Go Francis and rebuild my church, which, as you can see, is falling into ruin.” 

Here Francis was so powerfully transformed, that in fear, awe, love, and even perhaps some anger that we all know when confronted by the truth that changes our lives, he threw the money needed to rebuild San Damiano at the poor priest in charge of the small church.  Francis then came back and helped rebuild the church with his own hands later.  Francis would continue to return to this holy, thin place to pray.  Late in his life, near the end and after he had received the stigmata, he came here bearing much physical pain.  Yet, he praised God in spite of his pain and wrote the Canticle of the Creatures looking from his cell out onto the olive grove beneath the church. 

Here in the darkened church, originally built around 950, I sat in what I had hoped was silence.  However, the loud voices of the many tourists were at first invasive.  Yet, even though not there to pray, they were there out of respect for Francis and this place.  And so I could give thanks for their enthusiasm.  Soon, however, centering prayer’s call to kenosis drew me into the same silence that Francis sat.  A replica of the San Damiano crucifix is here exactly where the original one was when Francis first prayed here.  I prayed that I, too would hear Christ’s voice above all else, enveloping me in the Trinitarian love that transforms and invigorates. 

An inscription about the essence of prayer in the choir of the church behind the altar put there by Clare reads,
         Not a voice but a desire—

               Not clamor but love—

                     Not instruments but hearts singing in the ears of God. 

And so here I sat until noon when the crusty nuns closed down the church from tourists and pilgrims so that this holy spot truly could rest in silence from the demands of all those who visited here placed within its walls.  I tried my best to linger, but this one nun was persistent to keep me moving.  We cannot stay on the Holy Mount of Transfiguration, but must return and put feet and hands and hearts to our prayers. On the way back up the hill to Assisi, a lovely bronze statue of Francis captures the essence of how this place transformed him, as even now the prayers offered changes those who make the pilgrim's way here.   

pax