Saints Francis And Clare: Christmas, Eucharist, And Radical Humility

We trace how Francis’s living nativity at Greccio and Clare’s Eucharistic miracle unveil Christmas as a present-tense invitation to incarnate love. From Marian devotion to family practices, we show simple ways to turn homes into living mangers.

• Greccio as the first living crèche and its meaning
• Clare’s Christmas vision and Eucharistic devotion
• Christmas as foreshadowing of the Eucharist
• Marian reverence shaping Franciscan humility
• Distinct vocations of Francis and Clare in harmony
• Practical steps for families to live the mystery
• Adoration, simplicity, and service as daily habits

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Open by Steve Bailey

Chapters

• 0:00 Christmas Vision Of Incarnate Love
• 2:44 Childhood Seeds In Assisi
• 4:40 Invitation To Deepen The Journey
• 6:04 Greccio And The First Living Crèche
• 8:11 Clare’s Christmas Eucharistic Miracle
• 10:12 Two Hearts Beating In Assisi
• 13:34 Marian Devotion In The Franciscan Heart
• 16:23 Shared Vision, Distinct Vocations
• 19:14 Bringing The Vision Home To Families
• 22:46 A Christmas Call And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:22

Hello, family. Welcome to Journeys of Faith Super Saints Podcast at Brother Joseph Fry Aldenhoven here at your service. Be sure to look at the description for special information of interest to you. Saints Francis and Claire shared vision of incarnate love, one heart in the manger. Christmas night in Grey show 1223, the cold mountain air is sharp, and the little Italian village shivers beneath the quiet, eternal gaze of the stars, yet a warmth pulses in the stone cave, a light knot of this world. Saint Francis of Assisi kneels in adoration, gazing upon the newborn Christ in a manger, flesh and hay, heaven and earth colliding in a vision so humble, so overwhelming it would echo through centuries. Alongside him, spiritually, if not physically, is Saint Clare bound by an unbreakable cord of grace, sharing his longing to cradle love made flesh. This is not just nativity, nostalgia. For Saints Francis and Claire, the Christmas mystery is a summons, a radical revelation that God out of infinite tenderness became small, vulnerable, and poor, their lives intertwined in this peta the blazing fire of divine charity. Bear witness to a truth, we are called to rediscover every Advent and Christmas incarnation is not a story of yesterday, but a living invitation. It whispers to every faithful heart in every age, will you allow Christ to be born anew in you? At journeys of faith steeped in decades of pilgrimage and Eucharistic devotion, we invite you to enter into this sacred vision as we revisit Saints Francis and Claire's Christmas, rich in symbolism, daring in its humility, may your own heart become a living manger, ready to receive and radiate incarnate love. This is the Christmas the saints saw, the Christmas the world desperately needs now. Childhood of Francis and Claire. In the bustling medieval streets of Assisi, two children, Francis de Bernardon and Claire Offreduccio, came of age surrounded by a culture of wealth and privilege. Their worlds built on stone mansions and market stalls overflowed with the trappings of affluence. Francis, the son of a prosperous cloth merchant, learned early about silks, coins, and social standing. He craved glory, tossing coins to beggars in pursuit of admiration, dreaming of knighthood and adventure, yet beneath his feasts and laughter restlessness lurked a holy ache calling him toward something more. Claire's beginnings were equally gilded, nobility shaped her every waking hour. Across cool verandas and candlelit chapels she grew in grace and gentleness, but unlike many of her peers, Claire's gaze lingered on the poor, whom others hurried past. From the earliest years she cultivated a secret garden of prayer, silently placing her desires and doubts in God's hands. The rhythm of worship, the cadence of the Psalms, became her first language of love. Their paths did not cross as children. Frances and Claire moved in different circles, divided by custom and expectation, yet both carried within them a burning longing, a vision of love incarnate which would one day drive them to the same cold stones and straw of a simple manger. Their youthful hopes, dashed and reformed by Christ's call, would culminate in a revolution for the people of Assisi and the world. In these shadowed corridors of childhood sanctity quietly blossomed, preparing them for the day they would unite, flock to the Christ child's cradle, and kindle a movement of radical incarnate love. Deepen your journey with Saints Francis and Claire this Christmas. Let the burning vision of Saints Francis and Claire ignite your heart this Christmas season. Their shared devotion to incarnate love, visible in the humble manger, calls us to embrace the Eucharistic miracle at the center of our Catholic faith. At Journeys of Faith, we invite you to encounter their legacy and live out their passion and explore our rich library of best-selling books like This Is My Body, This Is My Blood, to understand how Franciscan love continues to shape the world. Strengthen your faith with our EWTN series, virtual pilgrimages, and exclusive Catholic resources, ideal for individuals or groups seeking to grow in Christ. Bring the saints home with unique sacramentals, icons, and spiritual gifts available at the lowest prices, plus free shipping for purchases over$18 and bulk discounts for store owners and retreat leaders. Join our community of cyber apostles, share in our rewards program, enjoy up to 50% off, and become part of a global movement centered on the Eucharist in heaven. Let this holy season awaken. Incarnate love in your heart. Visit journeys of faith today. One heart, one mind, one spirit with one vision. Gretcho in the first Kresh. On abiding winter night in 1223, the mountaintop village of Gretcho became the unlikely stage for a world-changing event. Saint Francis of Assisi's devotion toward the Christ child had blazed within him for years. But it was here that he revealed a vision so simple, so radical, it would leave an indelible mark upon Christian hearts for generations. The very first living Krish, Francis was not content to merely celebrate Christmas. He wanted believers to see, touch, and feel the astonishing humility of the incarnation. He gathered friends and townsfolk into a rocky grotto, arranging a humble manger with real animals, an ox, a donkey, and sweet smelling hay. With candles flickering against icy stone, the story of Christ's birth unfolded not as a distant memory, but as flesh and bone, heaven come down in poverty and light. Eyewitnesses recalled Francis himself stood before the altar, overcome with awe, weeping with joy at the sight of God made small for love of us. There were no grand pronouncements, only the silent mystery of Emmanuel, God with us in the swaddled newborn nestled amid straw. At Grecio the cave became Bethlehem, and the ancient promise of salvation drew close, breathing, tangible. This first crease shattered the barriers between Scripture and daily life. The Christmas mystery was no longer locked away in books or gilded icons, it burst into the senses of everyday people, calling them, as Saints Francis and Claire believed, with fierce conviction, to encounter Christ not only in the blessed sacrament, but in the poverty and vulnerability of the manger. Here hearts were set on fire, and the vision of incarnate love was no longer a distant star, it was one heart beating in the hay, calling us to adore Claire's Christmas miracle of the Eucharist. On one extraordinary Christmas Eve in Assisi, Saint Clare's longing to unite with Christ and her Franciscan brothers met with a miraculous fulfillment, while the poor Claire's gathered within the sanctuary of their stone walls. Claire was was dropped as Claire was left physically isolated by illness, unable to join the midnight celebration of Christ's birth with the friars in the lower chapel, yet what followed would reveal the living fire of Eucharistic devotion at the heart of her soul. Devout tradition attests that as the bells resounded through the winter night, Claire was lifted in spirit to the very heart of the mass. At that moment a vision unfolded, the chapel below became radiant before her eyes, its priests and faithful gathered, the carols echoing, and above all the sacred host raised in the priest's hands gleaming like Bethlehem's star. As Claire's feeble strength gave way to rapt adoration, she was not only a passive observer, the Lord allowed her to hear every note of the glory, every prayer, and every word of the divine liturgy, as if she herself stood at the altar. The real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist bridged the gap, collapsing the distance between suffering and sacred celebration. Saint Claire's Christmas miracle is more than a story of supernatural consolation, it is a radiant signpost pointing toward the incarnate love of God, made present and accessible to all the faithful through the Eucharist. In Claire's humility and hunger for Christ, mirroring the lowliness of the manger, God responded with a gift that drew the mysteries of heaven to earth. Even confined by weakness, her soul communed with the word made flesh, reminding every Catholic that, especially in our most vulnerable moments, Christ in the Eucharist is nearer than ever. One heart beating in Assisi Assisi, a stony town nestled among the Umbrian hills, echoing with the distant songs of larks and bells. It was here that Saints Francis and Claire walked, prayed, and wept, inching closer to the heart of the gospel, to the Christ child who took flesh in a manger's straw. Their footsteps were separate, their paths winding, but their hearts pulsed with the same singular fire to make incarnate the love born in Bethlehem. Saint Francis, poor, draped in rough wool, nearly indistinguishable from the beggars he loved, stood in awe before the nativity. Christmas for him eclipsed all other feasts. It was the moment divinity stepped into the world's suffering, not as conqueror, but as a vulnerable child. Francis wanted the world to feel this mystery, not just hear it. In Grecio, in the cold winter of twelve twenty three, he staged the first living nativity, inviting villagers to see, touch, and breathe in the humility of God. It was more than pageantry, it was a portal. Around flickering lanterns and the scent of hay, their hearts swelled with reverence for the God who came close, so close he risked the world's indifference. Claire separated in body, cloistered at San Damiano, was never distant in spirit. She watched the same stars as Francis, felt the same ache for the word made flesh. On Christmas Eve, tradition holds she was so suffused with longing that she miraculously beheld the midnight mass in Gretchio from her convent, wrapped in the luminous vision of Emmanuel. For Claire, Christmas was not just a date on the calendar, it was an ongoing reality, Christ born anew in the poverty and silence of her heart. Her sisters called her mother, but she called the infant Jesus her mirror. Her only true wealth was to love as he loved totally, relentlessly, incarnationally in Assisi, then two hearts, Francis and Claire, merged in a single thrum of adoration, both pierced by the God who chose a manger over a throne. Their vision of Christmas, radical and earthy, still calls us to step out of safe sanctuaries and into the world's need to look for Christ among the lowly to become ourselves a living nativity where others might kneel and adore. The story of Bethlehem's humble crib is not just a tale for Christmas, it's an echo of the incarnation that Saints Francis and Claire heard resound in their hearts. As the world slumbers beneath the stars, Francis kneels before a manger in Grecio, straw beneath his knees, and sees not just a newborn child, but the bread of angels come down from heaven. For Francis, the nativity is not distant history, it's the foreshadowing of the Eucharist, that unending miracle where God becomes vulnerable, present, touchable, breakable for love. Claire, separated from Francis only by stone in a cloister's grill, shares this vision. She adores the Christ child present in every host, seeing every mass as a new Christmas. Her letters to Agnes don't just urge poverty and humility. They are ablaze with the awareness that the same love who lay helpless in a manger humbles himself daily upon the altar. Claire's gaze is fixed on both Crib and Chalice, their wood and gold whispering the same truth. God with us here and now. For Francis and Claire, Christmas isn't a season, it's a revelation, a perpetual call to behold the Lord hidden in plain sight. Their lives become living mangers, emptied of self so Christ can dwell richly within. For those drawn into their story, the path is clear. Kneel at the manger and let its echoes lead you to the altar where incarnate love waits, still humble and small, still powerful enough to change the world. Marian Reverence and Franciscan spirituality. To truly understand the hearts of Saints Francis and Claire, it is essential to look toward their burning devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. For both saints, Mary and Reverence was not a decorative element of faith, but a living, breathing current animating every expression of Christian charity. In the cold manger of Grecio, Francis did not merely contemplate the infant Christ, but also the humble fiat of Mary, whose yes made the incarnation possible. The poverty of Bethlehem, so dear to Francis's heart, was mirrored in the humility and surrender that Mary embodied from Nazareth to Calvary. For Claire, Mary was not only the mother of God, but the model of virginity, contemplation, and maternal care. Claire's letters resound with Marian imagery. She urges her sisters to cling to the mother of God and to gaze always upon Christ through the eyes of Mary. The poor ladies of San Damiano saw in Mary the first tabernacle, the chosen vessel who bore the body of Christ, whom they adored so fervently in the Eucharist. This Marian spirit permeated every Christmas celebrated by the early Franciscans, it was in imitation of Mary's attentive silence and humble acceptance that Francis and Claire approached the mystery of God made flesh. The manger was not only a symbol of holy poverty, but a Marian sign, a cradle emptied of comfort, filled instead with faith, trust, and undivided love. In that cold rock hollow, straw cradled the newborn Jesus, but it also cradled the aching hearts of villagers, friars, and the very soul of the church. Claire, for her part, transformed her cloistered walls into living echoes of Bethlehem, her contemplative gaze pierced beyond the stone and timber, beholding in the Eucharist the very reality Francis had cherished at Gratio, God made man, present and vulnerable in the hands of his people. The altar for Claire became the new manger. There at every mass the miracle of Christmas, God entering our poverty, our frailty, our longing was made visible again. The same trembling awe that hushed shepherds in the cave surged in the silence before the consecrated host. And this continuity, the cave folding into the altar, Christmas pouring itself into the Eucharist, was the heart of the Franciscan vision. Neither saint was content to let the incarnation be memory. In their hearts, liturgies, and communities, the mystery pressed unceasingly forward, calling generation after generation to kneel at the threshold of divine love made flesh as truly now as on that first silent night. Shared vision, distinct vocation. Saints Francis and Claire, two blazing stars in the Advent sky of Christendom, were united by a profound vision of incarnate love, yet they lived out their calling with strikingly different hues. Their Christmases were not shaped by opulence or comfort, but by the dazzling poverty of the Bethlehem cave, a cradle for Christ, wrapped not in silk but in straw and surrender. Francis, with eyes fixed on the child in the manger, transformed Gretchio into a living gospel. It was Christmas twelve twenty three, and he set a simple scene Ox, donkey, manger, and townsfolk gathered by torchlight. Francis knelt, awe struck before the trembling mystery of the incarnation. God made small and vulnerable for our sake. His poverty was not emptiness but fierce openness for him to imitate Christ was to strip away everything that veiled love, and Claire cloistered within the walls of San Damiano, bore the same burning love, yet her vocation was hushed devotion, a vigil kept before the living bread. While Francis sang hymns on frosty hillsides, Claire adored cries hidden in the Eucharist night after silent night. She became the living monstrance, a heart alive with self gift, continually offering herself as Mary did, echoing the yes that let God break into the world. Their shared vision, incarnate love, humbling himself to dwell with us, became the seed of two flourishing charisms. Frances took the gospel to the roads and marketplaces in fleshing Christ's compassion and word indeed. Claire guarded Moose guarded the mystery in prayerful poverty, her heart a Bethlehem, where the world's weary hopes could find rest. This season, when the manger calls us back to wonder, we remember Saints Francis and Claire teach us that Christ enters both the wild and the hidden places. Their unity was not uniformity but the fierce holy harmony of two souls surrendered to the same infant king. Contemporary application. For families, the lives of Saints Francis and Claire resound beyond the stone walls of medieval Assisi, echoing in the living rooms, kitchens, and cradles of families today. Their shared vision of incarnate love, love that is not just felt but made tangible in humble daily acts, offers both shelter and challenge to Christian families longing to make Christmas a transformative encounter with the living Christ. In Francis's tender devotion to the mystery of the manger, families are invited to draw near to the simplicity and vulnerability of the nativity. This isn't nostalgic sentiment, it's a call to strip away the noise and consumerism that so often drown out the silent, sacred arrival of Jesus into our world. Reading scripture together by the family crib, sharing a meal with someone lonely, and choosing gifts that speak of presence, not expense, allow Christ to be born anew in the heart of the home. Claire's hidden life, radiant with Eucharistic love, lights the way for parents and children seeking faithfulness amid ordinary routines. Her example calls families to set their gaze on Christ to foster a spirit of adoration amid laundry and homework, to carve out moments of stillness where the true reason for the season is revered. Whether it's gathering for nightly prayer, attending mass as a family, or simply pausing to bless one another at the start of each day, these practices knit hearts together in the love that animated both saints in a world starved for authentic connection and lasting peace, following the path lit by Francis and Claire, generosity, humility, and trust can transfigure ordinary family life into a manger ready for Christ to dwell. Their vision, incarnate and ever ancient, ever new, invites every family to become a living sign of God's love at Christmas and beyond. Conclusion A Christmas vision burning bright. Saints Francis and Claire revealed to us in their Christmas witness what it means to possess one heart in the manger. Their lives so deeply intertwined with the mystery of the incarnation, invite us to approach the Christ child in radical humility, to embrace poverty with joy, and to serve our neighbor out of burning incarnate love. As we meditate on Saints Francis and Claire at Christmas, we remember that the stable was not just a singular event, but an eternal call to let God be born in us, to cradle his presence in our hearts, and to carry him to a world thirsting for hope. Here at Journeys of Faith, the vision blazed by these saints propels us onward, inspiring every retreat, resource, and pilgrimage, virtual or physical, offered to you and your loved ones. In our one heart, one mind, one spirit, we kecho Francis and Claire, Christ at the center, the Eucharist as our source, and heaven as our destination. This season, as you gather by the manger, may you too encounter that fierce, transformative love. Saints Francis and Claire, pray for us this Christmas and always, that our lives may become a living Christmas where Christ is forever born anew. Visit Journeys of Faith online collections. Be sure to click the link in the description for special news item. And since there is more to this article, finish reading and check out the special offer. Visit Journeysoffaith.com website today.