“In the morning the whole community came to the mother, each sister bearing a torch, and the prioress put a crown upon her head and led her to the choir, where we said the Office for the day and then sang the Mass as best we could. Then the mother took the Blessed Sacrament from the tabernacle and exposed it, and the community knelt to adore it and make a spiritual communion. We comforted ourselves with the words of St. Augustine: Crede et manducasti (Believe, and thou hast eaten). The mother then sat by the altar, and one by one we all went up to her and embraced her, … and she had her hands full of rings, and gave each of the sisters one as a pledge of their renewed espousals with their Bridegroom and of their resolve to be true to him; … although it has not been the custom hitherto with us, the mother thought that, considering these exceptionally sad years, it would be a remembrance of the obedience and earnestness with which we have hung together through these vicissitudes.… Then we took the mother to table, … and you, dear father, have proved yourself a generous host. The sisters said, ‘Oh! that Master Pirkheimer were here to see how we are enjoying his good gifts’; and your plate and Dame Kramer’s delighted us also mightily.… At last, at night, we had a little dance. The old nuns danced as well as the young ones. Mother Apollonia Tucher, who has been fifty-seven years in the convent, took hold of me and turned me round; … and the dance was so hearty that the mother said, ‘Dear children, spare my tables.’”
This was the last joyful event of Charitas’ life. Three months after this festival her niece Crescentia, Pirkheimer’s daughter, died, and the wicked tongues of the town took occasion to wag against the nuns, accusing them of worrying her to death; but Pirkheimer himself put down these scandalous rumors by publicly thanking the community
for the care bestowed on his child, and by making a special gift to the convent in recognition of it. He also singled out the sisters who had had special care of his daughter during her illness, and sent them tokens of his gratitude; and, not content with this, he left the convent fifty gulden in his will, which they received after his death.
Another cross befell the abbess in the loss of reason of two of her nuns—a circumstance of which her enemies did not fail to make good use; but, the two sisters being perfectly harmless, except at long intervals, no removal was necessary, and they went about their common duties peacefully until their death.
In 1530 Charitas lost her well-beloved brother Wilibald, which was a sad break-up to her; but before he died he published an Apology for the Convent of St. Clare, which greatly comforted, if it did not help, the nuns. But the council contemptuously overlooked this as it had done all previous petitions.
Two years after her brother’s death the noble Charitas Pirkheimer followed him to a better land, and her sister Clara was chosen abbess in her stead. Her friend Apollonia Tucher died within a few months, on the 15th of January, 1533, and the new abbess the following month, whereupon her niece Katharine became abbess and ruled the community for thirty years. She was the last abbess but one; for towards the end of the century the last nun died and the convent reverted to the town.[74] But the good
fight had been fought, and the noble defeat only brought fresh and eternal honor on the name of the Clarist Order; for, as says Montaigne, “There are defeats that dispute the palm with victories,” and Lacordaire comments thus on the saying: “This noble axiom applies no less to moral than to military defeats, and we should never tire of inculcating the principle that as long as honor and conscience are safe, so long also is fame deserved.”
[72] Charitas Pirkheimer, Abbess of St. Clare at Nuremberg. By Franz Binder. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau. The biographer, Franz Binder, has compiled the life of Charitas, which we have condensed in the present article, from trustworthy sources, the principal ones being the Works of Wilibald Pirkheimer, in Latin, published at Frankfort in 1610; MS. letters of the Pirkheimer family preserved in the town library at Nuremberg; Charitas’ own diary, published at Bamberg in 1852; Dr. Lochner’s Biography of Celebrated Nurembergers, published in 1861; and other less important and shorter works in which passing reference is made to the events of Charitas’ life.
[73] Literally lay priests, but, we think, referring to seculars.
[74] The church of St. Clare at Nuremberg remained for a long time closed. It was then opened again and soon afterwards given over to Protestant worship. It was subsequently used for commercial purposes, as a magazine of wares, a market-place, and place for local exhibitions, and finally as a barracks. In 1854 it was given back to the Catholics of Nuremberg as their second church. In the following year its restoration was begun, and on May 13, 1857, the Church of St. Clare was publicly consecrated anew for Catholic worship.