Heb 10, 19-25; Ps.23; Mk 4, 21-25.
Her name was Clarice, she was very beautiful and from a princely family. Born in Vignanello, diocese of Civita Castellana, in 1585, in her 20s she entered the Poor Clares of the monastery of San Bernardino, in Viterbo, where her sister Ginevra was already there. But while the latter found herself there by her own vocational choice, Clarice did not become a nun: she remained a Franciscan tertiary taking the name of Giacinta and lived for 15 years in two well-furnished bedrooms “among many vanities and nonsense” as she herself later wrote. At a certain point he falls ill, while some deaths occur in the family, and his conversion begins there. With 24 years spent in poverty and heroic penance, he will make up for past weaknesses. After having abandoned the two bedrooms to set up a cell without everything, wanting to repeat the Passion of the Lord in his body, he macerates himself with all kinds of torments, from prolonged fasting to scourges, from sleeping on the bare ground to vigils in continuous prayer, dragging a heavy cross on his shoulders. To these voluntary penances are added the inevitable trials for those who strive for perfection, such as illnesses, contempt or temptations. Not being required to be cloistered as a tertiary worker, she carried out an intense social activity, helping the poor, assisting the sick and visiting prisoners. In this service of charity she found collaborators, often people converted by her example, and promoted various institutions, including that of the “Sacconi” (so called because of the sack that the brothers wore in their service) and that of the Oblates of Mary for assistance to the poor elderly. His continuous union with God reaches the usual ecstatic state on certain occasions, with the gift of prophecy and the scrutiny of hearts. She died on January 30, 1640. The people’s veneration for her remains was such that she had to be dressed three times because the clothes were shredded by devotees to make relics. Beatified in 1726, she was canonized in 1807.
