Clare's older sister Joan (Giovanna in Italian) and her friend Andreola lived as Franciscan tertiaries in that hermitage as part of the Secular Third Order of St. Francis.

In 1290, Clare, her sister Joan, and their companions sought to enter the monastic life in a more strict sense, and they made application to the Bishop of Spoleto.

Her sister Joan was elected as the first abbess, and their small hermitage (built and funded by their father) was dedicated as a monastery.

During the celebration of the Epiphany, after making a general confession in front of all her fellow nuns, she fell into ecstasy and remained in that state for several weeks.

The rest of her years were spent in pain and suffering, yet she continued to joyfully serve as abbess, teacher, mother and spiritual directress of her nuns.

[6] Upon hearing the news of these signs, the vicar of the Bishop of Spoleto traveled to Montefalco "burning with indignation" suspecting that the nuns of the convent had planted the symbols.

A commission consisting of physicians, jurists, and theologians was assembled to conduct an investigation, which subsequently "ruled out the possibility of fabrication or artifice".

[3] The vicar of the Bishop of Spoleto, who came to Montefalco as an inquisitor eager to punish those responsible for fraud, came to be convinced of the authenticity of the findings after personally verifying that the signs were not the result of trickery.

[3] During the proceedings Tommaso Boni, a Franciscan from Foligno and formerly chaplain to Clare's community, stated that he suspected that the "symbols in her heart were planted by a nun from Foligno"; furthermore that John Pulicinus, who had been chaplain at the time of Clare's death, had opposed the veneration of the symbols found in her heart.

[8] Christ's head leans slightly towards the right arm of the crucifix, and his body is white, except for the "tiny aperture in the right side which is a livid reddish color.