How do we center ourselves in the love of God? Clare’s answer is simple and disarming: Become poor. Clare wrote to encourage Agnes to pursue a life of poverty, to become poor enough to embrace the poor Spouse. It is hard to admit in a consumer culture that poverty is the key to the fullness of life. To the secular mind it seems absurd. Western culture is immersed in a capitalism based on the idea that worldly success is a blessing of God. The type of poverty that Clare and the Franciscans speak of is opposed to the spirit of capitalism. It means to be dependent on others. That is exactly what Clare and Francis saw in the mystery of Jesus Christ.
—from the book Clare of Assisi: A Heart Full of Love
by Ilia Delio, OSF
