Clare of Assisi did not elaborate on the poverty of the human person but she knew it in the depths of her soul. She fought for the “privilege of poverty” because she knew that if she failed to be dependent on others, she would ultimately fail to be dependent on God. Like Francis, she firmly believed in a God enfleshed in fragile human nature— Incarnation. Had she sought a nice, clean, fresh, minty type of God in heaven, she might have opted for more autonomy. But she believed that God has come among us and revealed to us, in the poverty of being human, how to live united in love, to God and to another. She realized that only the poor and humble can share in the poor and humble love of God. Clare’s path to God through the depths of poverty impels us to admit that real relationship with God requires true humble humanity. Only when we come to the truth of who we are (and who we are not) as poor persons can we come to that place of vulnerability in our lives where God can enter in. Only then can we know what it means to be a human person embedded in a world of goodness.

—from the book Clare: A Heart Full of Love by Franciscan Sister Ilia Delio