Clara Is Not in the Bible — and Clare of Assisi Refused the Easier Rule

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Clara is not in the Bible. It is Latin for clear or bright, and its most famous bearer spent forty years refusing to be given an easier rule.

From the Latin clarus — clear, bright, and by extension distinguished. The same root gives us clarity, declare and clarion.

Clare, Chiara, Clarissa and Claire are the same name. It spread across Europe after the thirteenth century because of one woman.

No. Latin is not a language of Scripture.

She was born into a noble family in Assisi around 1194 and heard Francis preach as a young woman. She left home at about eighteen, at night, and he cut off her hair in a small chapel outside the walls.

Her family came to take her back. The account says she held on to the altar cloth and uncovered her shorn head, and they left without her.

What followed was forty-one years in one building, and a long argument with a series of popes.

The point of contention was poverty. Clare wanted her community to hold no property at all — not individually, which was normal for religious orders, but not collectively either, which was not.

Successive popes offered her an easier arrangement. Endowments, income, security. She refused, repeatedly, and pressed instead for what she called the privilege of poverty: the right to own nothing.

She wrote her own rule, which made her the first woman known to have written a monastic rule for women. It was approved two days before she died in 1253.

Forty years of letters and refusals, and the approval arrived with her in bed.

Nothing, and that is worth saying, because the temptation with a name meaning “bright” is to reach for light verses and stop.

Scripture does have them. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. (Matthew 5:14) And the honest one: For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully. (1 Corinthians 13:12)

The King James has that second one as through a glass, darkly, which is the better-known phrasing and slightly overstates it. Ancient mirrors were polished bronze — a real image, and not a sharp one.

Paul’s point is not that we see nothing. It is that we see genuinely and imperfectly at the same time, and that the imperfection is temporary.

There is one more thing the name suggests that Scripture does support, and it is about speech.

Paul, on public prayer in a language nobody follows: Unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what you are saying? You will just be speaking into the air. (1 Corinthians 14:9)

And on his own preaching, he says he did not come with eloquence or human wisdom (1 Corinthians 2:1), which from a man capable of both is a decision rather than an excuse.

Being understood is treated in Scripture as a duty rather than a gift.

May we be clear when clarity costs something.

May we refuse the easier arrangement when we can see it is easier.

And may we be content to know in part until we know fully.

Is Clara a biblical name?

No. It is Latin, from clarus, clear or bright, and has no biblical occurrence.

Who was Clare of Assisi?

A noblewoman who left home at about eighteen to follow Francis, spent forty-one years in one community, and argued with successive popes for the right to own nothing.

Did she write a monastic rule?

Yes — the first known to have been written by a woman for women. It was approved two days before her death in 1253.

What does “through a glass, darkly” mean?

1 Corinthians 13:12 compares present knowledge to a bronze mirror: a real image and not a sharp one. Paul’s point is that we see genuinely and imperfectly at once.

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