Italy · 13th Century
Saint Clare of Assisi
In the summer of 1240, during the ongoing conflict between Pope Gregory IX and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, the Italian peninsula was torn by warfare. Frederick II, excommunicated by the Pope, employed Saracen mercenaries from Sicily in his military campaigns—a shocking decision that saw Muslim soldiers fighting in the heart of Christendom. These Saracen troops, along with other imperial forces, advanced on the town of Assisi in Umbria, arriving first at the walls of the Poor Clare convent of San Damiano on the outskirts of the town.
About this miracle
St. Clare of Assisi, the beloved friend and spiritual daughter of St. Francis, was gravely ill and bedridden in her monastery cell at San Damiano—the very chapel where St. Francis had received his calling to 'rebuild my church' years earlier. Clare, now 46 years old, had spent nearly three decades in prayer, penance, and contemplation, rarely leaving her monastery. She kept the Blessed Sacrament reserved in a silver and ivory pyx (monstrance) just steps from her cell, spending hours in Eucharistic adoration even during her illness.
When the Saracen soldiers scaled the convent walls and entered the cloister itself—a terrifying violation of the enclosed monastery where consecrated virgins lived in solitude—Clare's sisters were seized with terror. These battle-hardened mercenaries had come to plunder, destroy, and perhaps worse. In their desperation, the nuns ran to Clare's sickbed, begging their spiritual mother for help. Though weak from illness and fasting, Clare commanded her sisters to carry her on a stretcher to face the invaders. She insisted that the silver pyx containing the consecrated Host be carried before her.
When Clare was brought face to face with the Saracen soldiers, she prostrated herself before the Blessed Sacrament and prayed with tears streaming down her face: 'Does it please Thee, O God, to deliver into the hands of these beasts the defenseless children whom I have nourished with Thy love? I beseech Thee, good Lord, protect these whom now I am not able to protect.' At that moment, according to the testimony recorded by Thomas of Celano in his History of Saint Clare, a voice like that of a small child resounded from the tabernacle, saying: 'I will always protect you!'
Upon witnessing Clare's courage and faith, and seeing the Blessed Sacrament elevated before them, the Saracen mercenaries were suddenly seized with supernatural terror. Despite being trained warriors facing a community of unarmed, cloistered women, they turned and fled in panic, scaling back over the walls they had just climbed and abandoning their attack entirely. Not a single nun was harmed. The next day, Frederick II's forces attempted to attack Assisi itself, but Clare's prayers before the Eucharist once again turned them back, and the city was spared.