The PDFs below contain images of seventeenth-century printed books containing the Rule of St. Clare. Two 1621 printed books of the Rule of St Clare are bound with a 1622 printed version of the "Declarations and Ordinances made upon the Rule of Our Holy Mother S. Clare" (more commonly known today as the Constitutions of St Colette).
The first of these 1621 Rules was used by Eleanor Knott when, in 1948, she undertook a modern transcription of the Royal Irish Academy MS D i 2, the 1636 Rule in the hand of Br Mícheál Ó Cléirigh OFM. At the time this study was undertaken, the book was housed in the library of the Franciscan Friars of Merchant's Quay, Dublin, hence it has been referred to here as MQ as well as in a soon-to-be published article in Archivium Hibernicum, the journal of the Catholic Historical Society of Ireland. The PDF below contains pages 3-49 of the book i.e. the Rule only.
The second 1621 book has been housed in our monastery from time immemorial. It was printed in Spanish Flanders ( probably St Omer) in the early- seventeenth century and brought to Ireland by Irish sisters who sought to establish the Order in Ireland. This document is referred to as G (for Galway) in the upcoming article. The PDF contains all 80 pages of the book.
The third PDF contains images of the Rule of St. Clare printed in a 1684 book produced for the Poor Clare Community of Aire. This is a lightly edited edition of the 1621 Rule.
(Higher definition images of those contained in these PDFs can be requested from: poorclaresgalwayvocations@gmail.com.)
Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words.
Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
Pray then in this way:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
