herself to Francis.

It is one of the privileges of saints to suffer more than other men, for
they feel in their more loving hearts the echo of all the sorrows of the
world; but they also know joys and delights of which common men never
taste. What an inexpressible song of joy must have burst forth in
Francis's heart when he saw Clara on her knees before him, awaiting,
with his blessing, the word which would consecrate her life to the
gospel ideal.

Who knows if this interview did not inspire another saint, Fra Angelico,
to introduce into his masterpiece those two elect souls who, already
radiant with the light of the heavenly Jerusalem, stop to exchange a
kiss before crossing its threshold?

Souls, like flowers, have a perfume of their own which never deceives.
One look had sufficed for Francis to go down into the depths of this
heart; he was too kind to submit Clara to useless tests, too much an
idealist to prudently confine himself to custom or arbitrary decorum; as
when he founded the Order of Friars, he took counsel only of himself and
God. In this was his strength; if he had hesitated, or even if he had
simply submitted himself to ecclesiastical rules, he would have been
stopped twenty times before he had done anything. Success is so powerful
an argument that the biographers appear not to have perceived how
determined Francis was to ignore the canonical laws. He, a simple
deacon, arrogated to himself the right to receive Clara's vows and admit
her to the Order without the briefest novitiate. Such an act ought to
have drawn down upon its author all the censures of the Church, but
Francis was already one of those powers to whom much is forgiven, even
by those who speak in the name of the holy Roman Church.

Francis had decided that on the night between Palm Sunday and Holy
Monday (March 18-19, 1212) Clara should secretly quit the paternal
castle and come with two companions to Portiuncula, where he would await
her, and would give her the veil. She arrived just as the friars were
singing matins. They went out, the story goes, carrying candles in their
hands, to meet the bride, while from the woods around Portiuncula
resounded songs of joy over this new bridal. Then Mass was begun at that
same altar where, three years before, Francis had heard the decisive
call of Jesus; he was kneeling in the same place, but surrounded now
with a whole spiritual family.

It is easy to imagine Clara's emotion. The step which she