ST.FRANCIS OF ASSISI : A MEETING WITH ST.CLARE : THE PLACE AFLAME WITH FIRE
It was a great desire of St.Clare, to have a meal with St.Francis. But, St.Francis was refusing for a very long time. However, at the persuasion of one of the Friars, the Blessed Father agreed to have a meal with St.Clare in the Church of St.Mary of the Angels, where St.Clare had shorn and became a spouse of Jesus. The appointed day arrived and St.Clare along with a companion and some Friars came to the Church of St.Mary of the Angels. St.Clare at once knelt down before our Blessed Mother and reverently and humbly greeted the Blessed Virgin Mary. Meanwhile St.Francis was laying the table on the bare ground as was his custom. And when it was time to eat, St.Francis and St.Clare sat down together along with the other companions around the humble table. At the first course, St.Francis began to speak about God in such a sweet, holy, profound, divine and marvellous way that he himself and St.Clare and the others were rapt in God by the overabundance of divine grace that descended upon them. And while they were sitting there, in a rapture, it seemed to the men of Assisi and Bettona and the entire district that the Church of St.Mary of the Angels and the whole place and the forest which was at that time around the Place were all aflame and that an immense fire was burning over all of them. Consequently the men of Assisi ran down there in great haste to save the Place and put out the fire. But when they reached the place, they saw that nothing was on fire. Entering the Place, they found St.Francis with St.Clare and the companions sitting around a very humble table rapt in God by contemplation and invested with divine power from on high. They instantly knew that it was a heavenly and not a material fire that God had miraculously shown to them symbolizing the fire of divine love which was burning in the souls of the Holy Friars and Nuns.