Clara (1697–1744)
Clara (1697–1744)
Italian saint. Name variations: Clara Isabella Fornari. Born Anna Felicia Fornari in Rome on June 25, 1697; died in 1744.
Born in Rome in 1697, Anna Fornari entered the novitiate of the Poor Clares of Todi. A year later, she professed her vows and was given the name Clara Isabella. Contemporaries—fellow nuns, her confessor, and her doctor—maintain that from the start of her novitiate, the devil was intent on driving her to despair and suicide: he struck her, threw her down the stairs, and tried to destroy her faith. Clara's hands, feet, and side were marked with the stigmata, the wounds of Christ on the cross, which sometimes bled.
Ecstatic visions were said to be interspersed with the devil's persecutions. Clara claimed prolonged visitations from St. Clare of Assisi , St. Catherine of Siena , Jesus Christ, and Mary the Virgin . During one of these visitations, Christ placed a ring on her finger, in honor of their spiritual marriage. A few months before her death, Clara felt abandoned by God but renewed her faith once more before she died in 1744.