Santa Clara 7 Day Glass Candle
Her Name Means Light. Her Life Was Light. And When She Could Not See, She Saw Anyway.
Clara Offreduccio was eighteen years old when she slipped out of her family’s palazzo in Assisi in the middle of the night, walked to the chapel of the Portiuncula, and placed her hands in the hands of Francis of Assisi. He cut off her hair. She exchanged her silk dress for a rough habit. She gave away everything; her inheritance, her status, her future as the daughter of a noble family and she never looked back.
She founded the Order of Poor Ladies, which would become the Poor Clares, and she fought the Pope himself, multiple popes, across decades for the right to live in absolute poverty, without property, without endowment, without the financial security the Church kept trying to give her. She won. She was the first woman in the history of the Church to write a Rule of Life for a religious order, and she lived that Rule for forty-two years without compromise.
When she was too ill to leave her bed and could not attend the Christmas Mass at the Basilica of San Francesco, she saw it anyway, the entire service, projected miraculously on the wall of her cell, with sound. Eight centuries later, Pope Pius XII declared her the patron of television. The miracle of the wall became the miracle of the screen. Santa Clara was already there.
Her name means light, clarity, brightness. She is the saint of clear sight, physical and spiritual. She is the saint who held up the Blessed Sacrament at the gates of Assisi and watched an invading army turn and flee. She is the saint of contemplation, of radical poverty, of the luminous interior life that sees what others cannot.
The Santa Clara 7 Day Glass Candle carries that clarity, that light, and that fierce, uncompromising grace through seven full days of burning.
Traditional Petitions
- Television, media, and telecommunications — patron of TV and all who work in visual media, declared by Pope Pius XII
- Eye disease and good eyesight — her name means light and clarity; petitioned for healing of eye conditions and clear vision
- Spiritual clarity and discernment — the gift of seeing what is hidden, of understanding what is true
- Clairvoyance and spiritual sight — her miracle of seeing at a distance connects her to petitions for spiritual vision
- Embroiderers, needleworkers, and those who work with their hands in fine craft
- Protection against invaders and enemies — she turned an army away with the Blessed Sacrament
- Contemplative life, deep prayer, and union with God
- Poverty, simplicity, and freedom from material attachment
How to Work This Candle
Come to Santa Clara with a clear and honest heart. She is the saint of clarity and she sees through pretense as easily as she saw through the wall of her cell. Write your petition naming what you need her light to illuminate: the eye condition that needs healing, the situation that needs clarity, the spiritual gift you are seeking, the enemy at the gate that needs to be turned away. Place it beneath the candle. Dress the top of the glass with Santa Clara oil or a clear, luminous oil, frankincense, white copal, or a light floral blend that honors her brightness. Her colors are brown, gold, and white. Her feast day is August 11th, a powerful day to begin a working with her or to ask for her blessing on anything related to sight, clarity, or media. Light the candle and ask her to let her light fall on whatever needs to be seen clearly. She has been seeing through walls for eight hundred years. She will see through yours.
Each candle is approximately 8 inches tall and burns for up to 7 days.
