Saint Clare and the Blessed Sacrament
We often find Santa Clara, being represented by raising the Custody, with our Lord. On other occasions we see her with a smaller Custody, in the hand. Other times we see her making this gesture of raising the Custody, while looking out a window or a wall of her monastery. Before this Custody flee the enemies who sought to invade their home, the Saracens.
John Paul II, dated August 11, 1993, sends a message to the Poor Clares on the occasion of the VIII centenary of death. The title of the message is: "A life made Eucharist", and it says on this point: "Also thanks to a type of iconography that was very successful from the seventeenth century, Clare of Assisi is often represented with the Custody in the hand.
The gesture recalls, although in a more solemn attitude, the humble reality of this woman who, already very sick, prostrated herself, supported by two sisters, before the silver tabernacle that contained the Eucharist (cf. LCl 21), placed before the gate of the refectory, where the fury of the emperor's troops was about to break. Clara lived on that bread, although, according to the customs of her time, she could only receive it seven times a year. ”
I didn’t know Holy Communion was limited to 7 times a year during the 12th century in Assisi.
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